


Blood Hands

by Bre



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: (but i also took the show out of the cw 'verse, (i shove several seasons of relationship development into a couple of days, (i'm very fond of the word fuck and so is oliver in this fic), (just a little i didn't get rid of that i loved it too much), (this is a comic book show thus it has my version of a comic book plot), Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Kissing, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Attempted Kidnapping, Attempted Sexual Assault, BAMF Felicity Smoak, Blood, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Torture, Blood and Violence, Bratva, Bratva Oliver Queen, Canon Compliant, Canon Related, Canon Rewrite, Canon Universe, Comfort/Angst, Comic Book Science, Dark, Dark Past, Dark Romance, Darkfic, Death, Denial of Feelings, Desperation, Drama, Drama & Romance, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, During Canon, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, False Identity, Feelings, Feelings Realization, Felicity Smoak Has Panic Attacks, Fights, Graphic Description, Grief, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, Human Trafficking, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Kidnapping, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, Love, Love Confessions, Minor Original Character(s), Neck Kissing, Nightmares, Non-Canonical Violence, Oliver Queen Being an Asshole, Oliver Queen Has Issues, Oliver Queen Has Nightmares, Oliver Queen Has PTSD, Organized Crime, Origin Story, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Overprotective, POV Alternating, POV Felicity Smoak, POV John Diggle, POV Oliver Queen, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Past Lives, Past Violence, Peril, Plot, Plot Twists, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Oliver Queen, Rewrite, Rough Kissing, Russian Mafia, Scratching, Season/Series 02, Secrets, Sex Trafficking, Sexual Assault, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Sleeping Together, Slow Burn, Stalking, Suspense, Threats, Threats of Violence, Thriller, Torture, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence, and not in the healthy ways they learn how to in canon), hidden past, it's a pressure cooker and oliver and felicity respond accordingly, poured netflix/hbo/cinemax gasoline all over it, romantic suspense, then set it on fire)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:22:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 74,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bre/pseuds/Bre
Summary: When a sinister new Bratva operation comes to Starling City, the carefully curated lines between Oliver Queen's past and present shatter. With new clubs opening across the Glades and backroom deals set to happen at a high-end gala, Oliver races to stop the darkness before it can stain his world forever. But the harder he fights, the more it pushes him to the brink.Especially when the Bratva turn their sights on Felicity.What will he do to protect her?What won't he do?(Chapter 1 is a landing page, and will include chapters teasers and a chapter index.)(Updated every Wednesday.)
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 1357
Kudos: 870





	1. Chapter Index

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ([Rewrite of this story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3628926/chapters/8013672).)
> 
> After five years, it's finally here. Thank you so much to all those supported me, and encouraged me, and were ever so patient regarding this rewrite. I hope it was worth the wait! ([You can read my closing notes on the original story here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3628926/chapters/68526789).)
> 
> This will remain a landing page to operate as a chapter index and for chapter teasers.
> 
> See below for a hint of the next update: **Friday 12 a.m.**

**Updated Every Wednesday!**  


**Soundtrack**

I have three playlists for this fic, all on Spotify:

[The Soundtrack](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3YpqWamLZgLJg5cqnSEpyg)  
[My Writing Playlist - Classical](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OERhkaPzOpDgHv97Q01K5)  
[My Writing Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42iXlNCRW3jZ5ChpoI7qhc)

If you have any song suggestions as you read, I would love to hear them!!

**Chapter Index**

[Tuesday 2 a.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/68874936#workskin) (114 hours before the gala)  
It's 2 a.m. and Oliver isn't alone in the foundry.

[Tuesday 8 a.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/69258615#workskin) (108 hours before the gala)  
Felicity takes matters into her own hands. 

[Tuesday 7 p.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/69665694#workskin) (97 hours before the gala)  
Oliver talks to the Bratva. 

[Tuesday 9 p.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/70076832#workskin) (95 hours before the gala)  
Oliver finds Felicity, and his fears get the best of him. 

[Wednesday 2 a.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/70452672#workskin) (90 hours before the gala)  
Oliver and Felicity talk. 

[Wednesday 11 a.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/70836006#workskin) (81 hours before the gala)  
Diggle gets some answers, and Felicity comes to her own conclusions. 

[Wednesday 4 p.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/71235225#workskin) (76 hours before the gala)  
Felicity breaks the encryption, truths are revealed, and Alexi calls Oliver. 

[Wednesday 6 p.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/71637147#workskin) (74 hours before the gala)  
Oliver keeps digging, and Felicity fights to accept what happened. 

[Wednesday 9 p.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/72047430#workskin) (71 hours before the gala)  
Felicity's world is turned upside down. 

[Wednesday 10 p.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/72513162#workskin) (70 hours before the gala)  
As their world spins further out of control, they lean on each other. 

[Thursday 6 a.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/72969756#workskin) (62 hours before the gala)  
Oliver helps Felicity deal. 

[Thursday 11 a.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977310/chapters/73371729#workskin) (57 hours before the gala)  
With the gala still looming, Felicity pushes for more answers. 

**Teaser - Friday 12 a.m.**

The Arrow showed no mercy. 

Oliver beat his way out of the pile, leaving carnage in his path. He stopped thinking about the damage he was leaving behind. A snapped wrist, a shattered windpipe, a twisted knee. The blip of regret he’d felt earlier disappeared in a violent whoosh. There was only justice. Revenge. There was only what these men represented, what they were doing. What they were going to do.

They didn’t give their victims a chance, did they?

“Run! Go!” one shouted in Russian. 

Oliver grabbed the back of his shirt before he could go anywhere, throwing him with ease into a rancid pile of garbage stacked against one wall. He landed head-first with a stomach-turning thud. He didn’t get back up.

Another one grabbed his friend with a terrified, “Come on!” and pulled him to the van.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Oliver growled in Russian as he went after them.

The threat in his voice siphoned the color from the man’s face and he dropped his friend only to snatch something from the ground. A flash of a metal barrel had Oliver diving to the side just as the man unloaded a half-full clip. 

Oliver looked up in time to see the man had riddled his friend with bullets and was now running for the van.

Where a terrified scream continued to ring out. 

Urgency slammed into Oliver and he raced after him. 

Pure fortune had him finding his bow and snatching it up just as the guy opened the driver’s side door.

An arrow loaded with a wire shot out and wound around the man’s arms and legs, completely immobilizing him. He careened into the open door, his head slamming into the window, knocking him unconscious. 

Oliver didn’t wait for him to hit the ground before he was ripping open the van’s back doors. 

A thick wall of body odor and stale urine hit him. Oliver caught a hint of a splotched tear-stained cheek before the woman scuttled away from him. He managed a ragged, “Wait,” as she crashed into what sounded like a mesh cage with a whimper. He had to force himself to stop, to slow down as her terror saturated the air. His eyes adjusted enough to see her cowering away from him, her head hidden by her arms. 

Where had they taken her from? Where had they been taking her?

Police sirens sounded in the far distance.

“I won’t hurt you,” Oliver said, gentling his voice. He held his hands up before gently placing his bow down on the ground. He slowly held his hand out. “Let’s get you out of here, okay? These men won’t hurt you again, I promise. Nobody will.”

An eternity passed before she finally scooted closer. 

He fought to hide a sigh of relief. There was no way in hell he was leaving her here before the SCPD arrived, and if she trusted him enough to get her out of this van, he could get her somewhere safe until he knew for sure this was where the police were coming. Still, she hesitated, but he waited. Most people knew about the Hood - the Arrow - these days, though it was a toss up if they thought of him as a murderer, or as a savior… 

She fell in the latter half as her small hand grasped his.

“I’ve got you,” Oliver promised, keeping his voice low as he helped her scoot closer to the light. “They won’t hurt you again-”

She looked up at him.

Oliver gasped and dropped her hand, his throat closing around a stark, “Felicity?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse! Let me know what you think!
> 
> **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	2. Tuesday 2 a.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's 2 a.m. and Oliver isn't alone in the foundry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to my second attempt at this fic! Well, that's not entirely accurate. It's more like my thirteenth attempt. It's been a ride, both with the actual writing and plotting, but mostly the journey with my mental health. Ultimately, it took a pandemic and getting laid off for me to shut my ass up and sit down and write. So I did just that. I completely rewrote this entire story in the last few months! 
> 
> My primary aim with this new version was to get away from the CW. What could Arrow have been like on a more adult-themes friendly network? Think Banshee on Cinemax... Daredevil and The Punisher on Netflix... Sons of Anarchy on FX... Hannibal on NBC. I wanted to capture that feeling I had when I left the theater after watching Logan - a comic book story that is 10,000% for adults. That mentality is echoed in the plot, the action, the mob business, the language, the sexual content, and most definitely in Oliver and Felicity's relationship. I wanted something very adult, and I hope I captured that. I kept the same plot, but this version is nothing like the original. It's set in canon, but it's nothing like canon. It's much darker, the themes much heavier, I really lean into how horrifying the Bratva can be, and I 100% wrote my version of Olicity. 
> 
> If I was posting this independently, I wouldn't be nearly as hard-up about the content, but because I based this on the original, I feel the need to warn that this will not be for everyone who enjoyed the original story. And on the flip side, I'm sure there will be some who think it's not as dark as I do. We all have different barometers, so please be sure to read the tags!
> 
> Story title from Royal Blood's "Blood Hands." Lyrics from Metallica's Black Album. [Check out the soundtrack](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3YpqWamLZgLJg5cqnSEpyg).
> 
> As far as canon goes, I changed Oliver's past. I started writing this back in Season 3, so I knew nothing that was coming, and naturally I went way darker than the show ever would. I stayed with that. It's the _Russian mob_. It fell in-line with his character quite nicely, just with darker shades to the man we know and love.
> 
> I gave up on the translations. I kept a couple words in there and I hope Google Translate didn't do me dirty (lol it probably did), but for 99% of anything spoken in Russian, I put those words in italics where necessary.
> 
> This wouldn't be anywhere without my betas. When I first started this fic, it was just me. I got in way over my head, which is when my first beta, Margaret, swooped in to save me from myself. She helped more than anyone will ever know or appreciate. She taught me so much about my style, and about writing in general. Without her support and optimism and generosity, I never would have kept fighting to write this. And Jess, who graciously stepped in to read through this new version. I need the opinion of people I respect and trust to give it to me straight, and she did that and more, on top of giving me the confidence to know that I wrote the story I wanted. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. (I did more edits after she was done, because I can't help myself, so all mistakes are mine.)
> 
> I am touched beyond words at the excitement for this new version. That you guys have stuck with me through this means so much. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy it!

  
(114 hours before the gala)

_… struggle within, you seal your own coffin…_

His own scream woke him.  


Oliver shot up off the cot. Ragged breaths turned his throat to kindling, every inhale skating through his lungs like broken glass. Cool air chilled his sweat-soaked skin, making goosebumps rise on his chest and arms as he looked around with wild eyes.

For a moment, he was still in the past, copper and sweat in his nose… 

_In one clean move, the blade slid across the woman’s throat._

_“No!” Oliver shouted. He caught her, slapping his hand over the wound, but it was too late. Red coated his fingers, spilling down her front. He tried to hold the skin together, but there was too much blood, and it was everywhere. Her mouth fell open, gaping, lips moving soundlessly in gurgles and mulchy gasps for air as they stumbled to the dirty ground. Her eyes roved aimlessly around, not seeing the alley, or his vtoroy when the man dropped to wipe the blade off on her bare thigh with a sneer._

Except it hadn’t been Natália, a Hungarian woman looking for a better life in all the wrong places, caught stealing from the Bratva. 

It had been Felicity staring up at him. 

Mouth gaped, glasses skewed, dirt-smudged skin turning ashen, death filling her eyes with grey lifelessness.

Her spark faded into nothing.

“Fuck,” Oliver rasped, stomach twisting. He scrubbed his face until it hurt, only to drop his hands to dig into his bare chest. The vicious pounding of his heart radiated through his flesh, not slowing in the least. 

The nightmares were getting worse. They had started after Russia, the past mixing with the present, but with every night that passed, they got more vivid, more painfully real. They weren’t new; he knew every single person whose blood he wore on his hands. But now every single one of them morphed into Felicity. 

Oliver huffed, shaking his head. His goddamn mind was punishing him. He would have laughed if fear didn’t choke him, so rich and thick he could taste it bubbling up from inside.

_“I just think it’s better to not be with someone I could really care about.”_

It was easy to hide from during the day, but not at night. Sometimes it was so bad it was all he could do not to find something sharp enough to cut out the darkness swirling inside him.

“Damn it.”

Oliver tossed his sweaty comforter off and got up.

The cold air outside seeped through the warehouse walls, settling the foundry in an icy chill that nipped at his skin. He welcomed it, using it to clear away the fog the nightmare had left. His body lagged from lack of sleep - what had he gotten, two hours? Three? - but he ignored it. He flexed his hands, rolling his shoulders back, knowing the second he started hitting something the exhaustion would slip to the back of his mind where it belonged.

_Go to her._

The thought came out of nowhere, but the need that came with it was so powerful he had to stop and breathe. No, he couldn’t do that. It would be fuel on a fire he needed to stop burning.

Oliver forced himself to move, to go find something to punch, when a soft shuffle reached his ears. 

He froze, cocking his head.

Steam hissed. Light rain peppered the roof. A faint _drip, drip, drip_ in a far corner. Felicity’s servers whirred. Banked emergency lights hummed.

Another shuffle, followed by a soft metallic clang.

Someone was in the foundry.

The urge to dart out there and attack nearly overwhelmed him. Adrenaline from his dream still pumped in his veins, and he just barely kept himself still. Scraping his thumb over the edge of his index finger, he listened as the backdoor slid open. Only a few people even knew this place existed, much less how to get in.

Feet light, sticking to the shadows, he walked towards the main floor.

As if the universe knew what he needed, a diminutive figure appeared at the back stairs.

 _Felicity_.

His chest loosened, a band of anxiety he hadn’t realized was there releasing at the sight of her. Alive and well, she tiptoed down the metal steps. Of course she was alive, he chastised himself. It was just a dream. It was always just a dream.

That didn’t stop him from relishing the sight of her as he rubbed his fingers together against the ghostly memory of blood.

Red coat belted tight, a fluffy beanie on her head, her glasses fogged, she came down the steps. Tablet in one hand, her other on the railing, she made her way in without a sound until her sneaker squeaked on the last stair. She grimaced, shooting a quick glance to where his cot was. But when nothing happened, she headed towards her computers.

Curiosity stopped him from asking her what she was doing as she swept past him, leaving a trail of fresh rain and the familiar hint of gardenias and jasmine.

He moved with her through the shadows. 

She left the main generator off, instead switching on the fluorescents that lit the back of her computer monitors. The glow lit up her face, highlighting the determined pinch of her brow. So obviously comfortable there, she navigated her space with ease. He loved it, watching her in her element, in a place that was as much hers as it was his.

The tension in his shoulders fell away, a quiet sigh relaxing the tightness in his chest.

She plopped down into her chair and yanked her hat off with a whispered, “Alright, let’s see what’s wrong with you.” She opened her tablet, then a cord materialized in her hand that she connected to a monitor. Her eyes darted between the screens, her fingers already flying over the keyboards as she continued talking to herself. “I know it’s not your fault that I basically treat you like a crutch, but that doesn’t mean you can just stop working when I really need you to work. So, let’s just see what’s happening here.”

A minute ticked by, then another.

Oliver didn’t move, content to just watch her despite the cold concrete numbing his feet. He stole as many moments of her as he could, but he never gave himself the chance to just…

 _Watch_.

Felicity frowned at the code lining her screens. Her lips moved silently before she huffed and dropped her head into her hands. When she lifted it again, it was to glare at whatever was offending her. He could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she started tapping at her cheeks. He couldn’t look away. Especially when she poofed them out and poked them, forcing the air out in a gush before she attacked the keyboard again.

His lips curved. He’d never seen her do that before.

In fact, this was a Felicity he’d never seen, period. She’d removed all traces of the day, her face make-up free, her nails no longer sky blue but a dark plum purple. Her usual sleek ponytail was now a messy, lopsided bun that moved with her when she tilted her head. Wayward strands fell from their perilous perch, drifting down her back, brushing the side of her face and neck. 

His fingers itched to hook the loose tendrils behind her ear.

This was Felicity in-between. This was Felicity soft and unhindered, reserved for comfort and places filled with light and color. Not the foundry with its cold, ghost-filled shadows.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Oh! Okay, okay, there we go - are you what’s torturing me right now?” That little line he knew so well appeared between her brows as she bit her bottom lip. With each keystroke she made, her eyebrows slowly rose. And then she grinned. “There!”

His heart skipped a beat at the beautiful sight and he let himself have it. Let himself linger.

Then she burst to her feet and tore off her jacket.

His mind blanked.

She kept talking; he was sure, because her lips kept moving, but he didn’t hear any of it. The tastefully cut peach dress she’d worn earlier - of which he had specifically noted had a very appropriate skirt length - was now yoga pants and a cut-up MIT sweatshirt. 

It left nothing to the imagination.

Oliver’s mouth went dry as she leaned over to unhook her tablet.

The ragged edges of the sweatshirt rode up, exposing more skin. He latched onto the smooth expanse of her lower back, on the delicate curve of her spine that led directly to her perfectly rounded backside. He had memorized her curves long ago, how they looked in every skirt, every dress. But not like this. Not in yoga pants. A slow wave of desire slipped through his veins as warmth uncoiled inside him, taking over.

Something that felt a lot like common sense tugged at the back of his mind.

This was _Felicity_. His partner. His friend. 

But Oliver couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Instead of sitting back down, Felicity bent over her desk to type… and gave him the perfect view up her shirt.

The barest hint of her breasts hanging choked him.

She wasn’t wearing a bra. 

What would it be like to step up behind her and slide his hands up underneath it to touch her? His eyes fluttered, his lips parting, his fingers twitching. She would be soft and plump, he knew, filling his hands perfectly. But it wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to slide his hand down the curve of her stomach. It would concave as she sucked in a quick breath, especially when he put his lips on her neck. He swore he could already taste her, salty and delicious on his tongue. He would slip his fingers under the tight band of her pants. Her lush ass would be a perfect notch for him to press into, her warm back against his chest, her head falling back against his shoulder as he pinched her-

She abruptly stood, and Oliver nearly bit through his goddamn tongue.

What was he _doing_?

He slammed his eyes shut and slid back a step, ignoring the growing problem in his sweats in favor of digging his nails into his palms. 

And yet, despite himself, he couldn’t help but steal one more glance.

His greedy eyes drank in her exposed midriff, how snug the pants were on her hips, how her breasts swayed as she picked up her tablet and started fluttering around the foundry in restless bursts.

It was a gift to see her like this. One she hadn’t given him. One he was stealing. But the rapacious bastard that he was didn’t seem to care. Did she sleep in this? Was this what she wore to bed, all relaxed and sleepy? What panties did she have on under those pants? If any? The half-hard dick under his sweats twitched. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d taken himself in hand at the thought of her.

But it would be the first time he had something far more tangible to jerk off to.

“Fuck me,” Oliver gritted out under his breath and squeezed his eyes shut again.

He made himself turn and walk away. He had to. Otherwise he was going to do something idiotic, and that was the last thing either of them needed, especially her-

A heavy thud, a gasp, and then a loud scraping crash echoed through the foundry.

“Ow!”

Oliver wasn’t even aware of moving. One second, he was at his bed and the next he was rushing back to the main floor. She wasn’t where he’d last seen her. Not at her desk, not by her tiny maze of servers. Just when he was about to panic, movement had his head jerking to where he stored his training dummy.

Felicity stood up gingerly from the floor, face twisted in pain, one hand cupping her ribs, the other awkwardly clutching her tablet.

Worry eclipsed everything, and he ran right to her.

“Seriously?” she whispered, agony straining the word. She twisted to look at her side. “Who just leaves the mats sitting out like this? Didn’t we talk about moving these- _oh my god!_ ”

Felicity jumped when she saw him.

And rammed the edge of her tablet right into the underside of her chin. 

The ugly smack of her teeth resonated as she stumbled backwards.

“Whoa! Hey, hey…” Oliver grabbed her arms. She kept tilting with a pained whimper and he gripped her tighter, holding her up. “Are you alright?”

“ _Ow_ ,” was all he got as she covered her jaw with her free hand. Oliver cursed and smoothed his fingers over the hand holding her tablet until she relinquished it. He set it down on a nearby table, not letting her go for an instant. Good thing, he thought with a grimace, considering how damned pale she was. “Ooh, ow.”

“Felicity?”

“I’m good, I’m just…” Her jaw moving made her wince, and she swayed. He grabbed her hands to steady her and her chilled fingers gripped him tight. “Ringing. Ears are ringing.”

“I’m sorry. I thought you’d see me.”

“Oh, I saw you alright.” Felicity’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at him through dazed pain, but her pupils were equal and responsive, as far as he could tell. She stared up at him, her brow furrowing, as if she were just now making sense of what was happening. “Where did you even come from? One second it was just me, and then there you were…”

Her glasses were crooked. 

Oliver gently adjusted them and watched her cheeks flush with beautiful color. Mesmerized, he drank her in. He knew he had already taken too much tonight, but he wanted _more_. So he touched her cheek. His fingers ghosted over her heated skin, and he heard her breath catch. Instead of common sense kicking in, he fell harder. How could someone be so damn adorable while also being so incredibly gorgeous that he almost leaned in… 

“Oliver?”

He sucked in a quick breath as he crashed back to reality. 

Jesus Christ, what the hell was wrong with him tonight?

She’d asked him a question.

“I heard a crash,” he said, his voice thick. He cleared his throat. “It sounded like you were hurt.”

“Well, _someone_ didn’t put the mats back like they usually do. And… okay, I didn’t turn on the lights, so I didn’t see the mats were still there, which I probably would have if I hadn’t had three lattes instead of water tonight. But long story short, I tripped, and I ran into that stupid thing you’re always whaling on. And I didn’t even get to see you shirtless while doing it. Although you’re clearly not wearing a shirt right now. Not that I’m noticing. Well, obviously I’m noticing, but it’s not important. I’ve seen you shirtless. Multiple times. Shirtless… all the time. I’m going to stop talking now.”

His lips ticked up as warmth spread through him. 

“Are you alright?” he asked softly. 

“Yeah. Just… ow.” She flinched and touched her side. “There must be a broken piece on that thing.” 

Her fingers came back slick with red.

The nightmare roared to life right before his eyes.

With a hiss, Oliver snatched up the edge of her sweatshirt. A jagged abrasion sat high on her ribs, the skin blotchy, blood streaking down her side.

His chest constricted.

“C’mere.” He didn’t give her a chance to argue. He dragged her to the med cart. With a gruff, “Don’t move,” he left her long enough to flip the generator on. The room lit up, making her recoil, but he barely noticed, only seeing the bright red smearing her side. He tugged her shirt up again, higher, completely missing the way her breath caught as he started prodding the area around the wound. His fingers trembled. “We need to stop the bleeding.”

Oliver yanked open the cart drawers. Peroxide, cotton balls, bandages. He moved quickly, needing to erase the garish red from her unblemished skin. It had to stay that way. _She_ had to stay that way. 

He didn’t speak as he grabbed the closest chair and sat down, nor did he say anything when he tugged her between his legs and pushed her shirt up. She let out a startled noise before reaching around to hold it out of the way, her fingertips bloodless where she clutched the edge of her breast.

All he saw was red, so much of it, everywhere. 

Oliver doused a cotton ball with peroxide. 

“This is going to hurt,” he warned roughly before wiping over the wound.

She flinched away with a tiny whimper.

Cursing, Oliver forced himself to slow down. He had seen hundreds of gashes like this one, thousands probably, on himself and others. But never on her. Gentling his hands, he cleaned her up, grimacing with her when it stung, whispering, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s better.”

Oliver glanced up to see her eyes locked on his hands, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

She met his gaze, and only when he saw no pain there did he let himself relax.

No fresh blood came up, so he turned his attention to cleaning up the rest of her, wiping away the blood that had trickled down her side. As the seconds ticked by, as he saw she was okay, he became more aware of everything else. He could tell she was fighting to breathe normally the more he touched her. Her skin grew warmer, turning pink, and not from the cut. He wanted to pull his head out of his ass and stop this - stop _himself_ \- but he didn’t. Especially when he tugged the band of her pants down to clean the last bits of blood. He shouldn’t have done it, and he knew it. But he did anyway. She was just so soft against his calloused fingertips.

It took more willpower than it should have to tug her pants back into place, but he didn’t have enough to stop himself from grasping her bare waist and blowing on her skin when he noticed it wasn’t dry yet. 

He heard her gasp as goosebumps erupted under his fingers.

“Sorry.”

He didn’t _sound_ sorry.

_Goddamn it, get your shit together._

Swallowing hard, he started applying the bandages. She leaned into his touch as he pressed the adhesives down, one small one, then a larger bandage across the entire cut.

“I put a butterfly bandage on one part, but it should be fine.”

Felicity nodded as she dropped her shirt back into place. He swore he caught pebbled peaks poking up against the faded MIT letters, but when he looked her hands hovered over her chest, blocking his view. 

He didn’t move, and neither did she as he looked up at her from his seat. 

A low coil of anticipation lit up inside him.

“You won’t scar,” he told her quietly.

“Oh. Well. Good,” she offered, a little breathless. “It would be my first real scar. Unless you count the ones in my mouth.”

His lips twitched as he raised an eyebrow.

“I had my wisdom teeth removed when I was sixteen.” She pointed at the sides of her jaw. “They were really badly impacted. Three stitches.” Felicity opened her mouth to illustrate, only to gasp, her face screwing up in pain. “Oh… _frak_.”

Oliver was on his feet in a second, his hands hovering over hers. “Can I see?”

Her lips formed a startled little ‘o’ as she blinked up at him, but then she didn’t hesitate to drop her hands and give herself over. It was such a small thing. Nothing in the grand scheme of things, especially between them, and especially in what they did every day and night. But her blind trust still hit him square in the chest.

Oliver leaned down and tilted her head back. It forced her onto her toes, her hands flying to grasp his arms as he looked at the spot she’d hit.

An angry red mark decorated the underside of her chin, already bruising. 

He slid his hands down her jaw, checking for swelling. 

At least that’s what he told himself as he caressed the tender spot. She swallowed, her throat flexing, her skin heating, another blush coloring her cheeks. Her tongue darted out to lick her lips. Oliver’s eyes latched onto it as he straightened. He didn’t let her go. Not right away. Not with her hands still on him, her fingers warmed by his skin. 

The air between them hummed, thickening.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he murmured, sliding his gaze up to hers.

“You should be,” she breathed. He lifted an eyebrow and her blush deepened as it spread. He couldn’t help himself, watching the gentle pink slip down her throat, across her chest, disappearing under her sweatshirt. He now had an idea of how far down it went, and he wondered where it stopped. If it did. Her words tumbled out faster. “I-I mean, my teeth entered Tooth Thunderdome and nobody came out the winner. The least you can do is apologize. It’s not like you’re going to kiss it better. Did I really just say that?”

He should smile. Or chuckle. Show her how charmed he was. How taken. Just to let her off the hook. He didn’t. He did nothing but stare at her, caught up in something totally different. 

Heat radiated through her thin clothes. When her mouth parted on a shaky breath, he looked at her mouth again, fascinated by the pink lining her bare lips. Oliver slid his thumb along the underside of her bottom lip. He was so used to seeing them with color - pink, red, fuchsia, something that instantly grabbed his eye no matter how hard he worked to look elsewhere.

They were even harder to avoid now.

“Oliver?”

He met her eyes.

Felicity pushed up onto her toes and pressed those lips to his. 

Oliver gasped.

Warm, soft, and delicious, she kissed him, her fingers tightening on his arms. It was quick, a gentle touch, and then she was falling back. 

He didn’t let her get far. 

Oliver cupped her face and pulled her back to him, his mouth meeting hers again.

Euphoria and need burst inside him in a tangled web that eclipsed everything. Every desire he’d shoved down as deep as he could roared to the surface. He gripped her harder, sweeping his tongue along the seam of her lips. Felicity opened for him, their tongues meeting for the first time.

Oh god, it was heaven and Oliver lost himself in her.

They both moaned, and the kiss quickly grew with a fervor that burned. He angled her head as he slid his hands into her hair, opening wider, demanding more. Raspberry, coffee, and mint lingered on her tongue, and something distinctly her, something he was suddenly ravenous for. The kiss deepened, electrifying the air. Oliver wrapped his arms around her, clutching her sweatshirt in desperate fists. Her soft lines met his hard edges and Oliver groaned, sweeping his hands over her. One slid up her sweatshirt, flattening against her back, his other slipping down and under the band of her pants. With the most beautiful whimper, Felicity pushed up onto her toes, nails in the back of his neck and in his shoulder as she damn near climbed him. Oliver yanked her lower half closer, pressing his growing arousal into the soft planes of her stomach. 

A distinctly feminine sound escaped her. A siren’s call. Beckoning him. Urging him on.

Oliver responded like a moth to the flame. He devoured her, pulling her as close as he could get her, bending her backward to take more. The hand under her shirt slid up to the back of her neck, exposing more of her to him. He felt the hint of her breasts against his chest, and he growled against her lips. He had to feel more of her. He had to know. Oliver relinquished his hold on her backside to slide up under her shirt, his fingers brushing the underside of her bare breast. 

Felicity whined, arching her back, and he cupped her fully.

 _Heaven_.

Soft, perfect, just like he imagined. The hard little bud of her nipple seared his palm. He kneaded her tender flesh, earning even more delightful noises from her. Felicity curled her leg around his, anchoring him to her, and he hummed his approval, releasing her neck to pick her up, needing to know what she felt like in her most intimate places-

A loud urgent beep shattered the moment.

They broke apart.

For a second, nothing happened. They were both too stunned to do anything. 

His lips throbbed, molten lava in his veins, his chest rising and falling with harried breaths. His hands burned from touching her. She stared back at him, her mouth swollen, her delicate skin littered with abrasions from his stubble. God, she was an intoxicating sight. Glasses skewed, hair messier than before, shirt half-ridden up, revealing the underside of her breasts with every ragged breath she took. His erection did nothing to hide his appreciation as it jerked in his sweats. Her gaze dropped to look, and he watched color rise high on her cheeks.

Oliver wanted to see it all over her.

The beep sounded again, somehow louder this time.

Felicity jumped again, and it was only then she realized where her shirt was. She tugged it down, readjusting her glasses, smoothing her hair back. She winced, touching the underside of her jaw, and with a stab of guilt, it occurred to Oliver that the kiss had probably hurt her-

“Russia,” she blurted.

He froze.

It was the very last thing he expected to hear. The very last fucking thing. 

“What?”

“We were in Russia,” she said, “and, um… even though you didn’t tell me much about, well, anything - well, except for Isabel, but that’s so not the point of this. At all. I’m just… There’s… You knew people in Russia, right? Like that guy, Anatoly? He had that feeling about him, you know? That he was… Connected. To people.”

Oliver stared at her. “What exactly are you asking, Felicity?”

“What do you know about the Russian Mafia?”

The floor fell out from under him.

“The, uh… the Solnes… tske… something Bratva?” she continued, completely oblivious to her words sucking Oliver’s insides out through a straw. “The reason I’m asking is there’s a new club opening in the Glades. It’s called the Red Room, and it’s - the people behind it, they’re… Okay, backtrack. I had a friend who disappeared, about five years ago. My neighbor, Mrs. Fernandes? It was her daughter. They were some of the first people I met when I moved here, and they were so nice and welcoming. Camille, she worked at a club in the Glades, like the Red Room, and one night, she didn’t come home. She just vanished. And nobody did anything. The SCPD barely even tried. There was no surveillance, no hint, nothing. Nothing except for the club. It was the last place she was seen, but nobody knew what happened to her. But then, out of the blue, the club closed, about two years ago, and that was the last lead. I kept an alert on it, though, on the club, on the investors, on people who worked there, but it was like they all vanished too. Like it was never there. But then tonight I got a hit. It’s a miracle I got one at all because the Undertaking messed up so much, but I got a hit. Some of the investors from the club she worked at are involved with the new club-”

The words spilled out of her in such a rush that Oliver could barely comprehend what she said.

But he caught enough of it. Enough to feel the walls closing in on him, his blood turning to ice, his heart beating so fast black dots danced in front of his eyes.

“No,” he murmured, but it was too quiet for her to hear as she spun to her computers.

“My tablet wouldn’t connect to the servers,” Felicity went on, “and I wasn’t sleeping, so I came in to finish the search I was doing at home. My tablet still isn’t working, but…” Her fingers flew over the keyboard and a list of names popped up on the middle screen. He didn’t look at it, not even when she tapped the screen. “These are all the investors that link back to the old club. And after a little digging, I discovered these are all fake names, or shell companies built on shell companies. And, now that I’m working with you and have gained access to some very specific, slightly illegal information, I took a peek in the FBI mainframe and all of these names have been linked to the Russian mob. So, I thought, hey, maybe there’s something Oliver knows about them, or that guy Anatoly, or… Why are you looking at me like that?”

Her question barely pierced the buzzing noise filling his head. Heat danced across the back of his neck, the hairs rising as the air in the room evaporated. Oliver fought to breathe, to think, to act.

But all he felt was the returning riptide of the past digging its claws in.

_… thumping music rattling his bones, dark red silk draping the walls, the sickly sweet smell of cigars mixing with cheap perfume and sex, women of all shapes and sizes parading through the room in various states of undress, some sitting on patrons’ laps, some enticing others away, their caked-on makeup barely hiding bruises and cuts, lipstick smearing cheeks and beards, the slide of tumblers on the wood bar, ice hitting glass, a far-off shout of pain…_

“Oliver?”

_… the warehouse looming at the end of the slick dock, paint faded, old Cyrillic rusted and flaking off, salt in the air, the splash of water against the docks, a boat whistle, the gun heavy in his hand as he slid open the door, red everywhere, copper coating his tongue, crimson dripping off the hooks, the MV Zeya’s horn announcing its arrival…_

A hand grabbed his arm.

Oliver jerked away with a harsh, “ _Stop_.”

Felicity froze, eyes wide, her hand hovering in the air. He stared at it for a beat before he looked back at her with a hard glare he couldn’t temper.

She slid back a step. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“I don’t want you looking into this,” Oliver interrupted harshly.

She blanched. “What? Why?”

“Because I said so.” He looked at her computers. “Erase what you found and don’t-”

“No.”

Oliver went still, so still he _felt_ the air around him shifting as he turned to look at her again. There was no mitigating the rising tempest inside him, no shoving it down, no pretending it wasn’t there. It was all over him and he knew it by the way her face changed as she took him in. 

But he didn’t _care_.

“What?” he asked quietly.

“This is about my friend, Oliver,” Felicity said. “She disappeared. She _vanished_ , and for the first time in years I found something that might begin to give someone important to me peace of mind. I can’t sit back and do nothing while Mrs. Fernandes still puts up pictures of Camille around our neighborhood, hoping that maybe this time it’ll be different, that this time someone will see them and know exactly what happened to her. But it won’t. Doing what we do here, seeing what I’ve seen, I know it’s not that easy. And I know that if I have one piece of information, I can follow it, I can find them. I can find _her_.”

His mind spun. Fractured pieces got caught in the whirlwind that whipped faster and faster until he felt like throwing up. It was all too close to the surface, too fresh, and all he could think about was the horrific thought of her being anywhere _near_ the Bratva-

The nightmare reared its head, and suddenly he was back in that alley, her dead weight in his arms, her blood covering everything in thick swaths, the life draining out of her.

“No,” he gritted out.

“I already tried hacking their network,” she continued, “but it’s offline-”

“I said no!” Oliver slammed his fist into her desk. The furniture rattled, the monitors swaying, but he only saw Felicity jump, her eyes flying incredulously to his hand and then back to his face. “No more. Give me what you have.”

“I don’t understand,” Felicity said. “What is going on? This is what we do-”

“No, this is what _I_ do. Not you. Me.” He shoved his fingers into his sternum. “And if I tell you to stop doing something, that means _stop_. It’s that simple.”

“It’s not that simple-”

“Yes, it _is_ ,” he snapped. “It’s that simple because I fucking said it is. Because that’s how things work down here. I say drop it, you _drop it_.”

The words reverberated around the room, crashing and colliding with each other, barreling through everything meticulously built over time and demolishing it all in one fell swoop. Oliver watched it all play across her features as his words landed, one by one, each hit harder than the last.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. 

Then she turned away from him.

Oliver’s ground his teeth together, cursing at himself as his self-righteous fury fell away. 

“Felicity-”

“I need to… not be here.” She yanked her jacket on in broken jerks, pulling her hair out of the collar. Lips pursed, she waved at the computers. “All I have is there.”

He went after her. “Wait-”

“No,” she said, putting a hand up. He stopped dead in his tracks. He swore he saw a glimmer of wetness in her eyes before she blinked it away. “You made yourself perfectly clear.”

She grabbed her hat, her tablet off the table, and without another word, left.

He stared after her long after the metal door clanged shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're just getting started... 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
>  **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


	3. Tuesday 8 a.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity takes matters into her own hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the amazing response! I'm still very "it's been 84 years" about this story, so I really appreciate every kudos and comment and bookmark and subscription. 
> 
> This is still a slow burn, so buckle in because Oliver and Felicity do not make things easy - for themselves, or each other. I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think! 
> 
> I'm a revision fiend, and I kept editing after Jess did her amazing work, so all mistakes are mine. The last handful of chapters are still in need of heavy revisions, and as I go through the first 20 to edit and get them ready to post, I'm figuring out what I want to fix. So that means I'll be adding/changing the tags as I go along, just an FYI.

  
(108 hours before the gala)

_… twisting, turning, through the never…_

Rain pounded against her car. 

The cacophony of the downpour created a bubble that drowned out everything. Water sluiced down her windshield, blurry rivers that made seeing anything outside nearly impossible. Not that it mattered. She had long ago memorized the obscure facets of the hulking three-story brick building she stared at. And the surrounding streets. And the dilapidated apartments across the way. She had done that because she had plans, and those plans included nobody seeing what she was doing. Plans she was going to act on any second now.

Felicity bit her lip and nervously tapped the steering wheel. 

Once the rain stopped, she decided. Then she would go in.

A rusty truck sped past her, slamming into a swimming pool of a pothole, sending dirty water cascading over her Mini Cooper.

“Frak,” she whispered, hitting the wipers.

She had missed nothing, though. 

It was just her and the giant, unlit R3D ROOM sign emblazoned over the front entrance of the building.

Of course nothing had happened. She _knew_ nothing would happen. After several failed attempts at sleeping, hacking into the few cameras not broken around the club had been a welcome distraction. She had gone back through as much footage as she could and came to one conclusion: nobody was down here until at least noon. Most of the businesses had shuttered up after the Undertaking, and she had a feeling the people who still lived in this part of the Glades didn’t exactly have day jobs. Because there weren’t any day jobs. But at night? This area transformed into an entirely different world. 

All the more reason to do this now.

Felicity glanced back through her rear window. The camera perched over the door of the convenience store caught the front of the club, but not the alley in the back. She knew there was a door down there from the blueprints she had found last night. Or, rather, this morning.

Not being able to sleep was good for all sorts of things. 

Like remembering how Oliver Queen tasted, and what his hand on her breast felt like.

Heat zipped through her, tugging at her core as warmth spread across the back of her neck.

She still couldn’t believe that happened. She and Oliver had kissed. And not just a _kiss_ , but a kiss, the kind that stole breath away and turned limbs into jello. Part of her still wondered if it was a dream. The way he had looked at her. How he had touched her. The intensity in his eyes, the freeness of his hands. He was usually so stiff and abrupt, polite but always keeping his distance. Not last night. And instead of stepping back and wondering what the hell was going on - because something had to be going on, right? It had to be - she had looked up at him and thought, _Yes, this should happen_ , before kissing him. That was usually where her dreams ended, but not last night. No, he had kissed her back. He had _kissed_ her, fully, deeply, tasting her thoroughly, giving her so much more than her imagination ever had. His lips had been fuller than she expected. His body was harder, leaner than it looked, but no less powerful. His hands were rough, reminding her how many hours he spent with his bow. And he was _big_. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the bulging weight in his sweats pressed urgently against her. 

He had sent liquid fire through her veins, and all she’d been able to do was give in. 

What else was she supposed to do?

Felicity groaned and dropped her head against her seat. She winced when she felt it in her still-sore chin, but it had nothing on the ache in her chest.

“I’ll take ‘not kissing him’ for a hundred, Alex.”

She tried to keep it out of her mind, but her mind wasn’t having it. It kept circling back, tormenting her. She had really kissed Oliver, and it hadn’t ended in a fiery passion of limbs and need like she dreamed. When she’d thought about what might happen if she ever got the chance to put her lips on his, it had never ended like last night. With awkwardness, weirdness, and confusion.

And the distinct sense it shouldn’t have happened.

Felicity groaned louder and gripped the steering wheel so tight her fingers ached.

And then, as if that wasn’t enough, he bit her head off, chewed her up, and spat her out.

_“It’s that simple because I fucking said it is. Because that’s how things work down here. I say drop it, you drop it.”_

The words had sliced out sharp as knives, cutting her so deep she could still feel it. 

She thought they were a team. They tackled everything together, her and Diggle and Oliver all bringing something different to the table. He had even let her do more a couple weeks ago with the Dollmaker, trusting her to do her part to catch the bad guy. 

But that had been on his terms, hadn’t it?

And when it wasn’t?

_“This is what I do. Not you. Me.”_

Anger burned through her. She understood. She did. He had way more experience in this than her, sure, and no, she wasn’t out in the field, and yes, the few times she had been, it had ended badly. But she wasn’t suggesting _she_ do anything about the club! She hadn’t even thought about what would happen next when she found those names, because as of a couple hours ago, she had been part of a team. A team that had each other’s backs, that helped each other, that worked together.

That didn’t completely lose it when things were suddenly _weird_.

Why did she have to kiss him?

“Stupid.” Felicity shook her head. “What was I thinking? Why would I do that? And what was he thinking? It wasn’t all me. But now…”

Now it _was_ all her. Because the kiss changed everything. 

It changed them.

Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away. No, she would not cry over him, or the kiss. That stupid, unbelievably amazing kiss that had lit her up like nothing she’d ever felt before. She was done thinking about how much it had overwhelmed her in the best way possible, zapping her thoughts into nothing, leaving just sensation, just him. It didn’t matter that if her computer had never alerted her to the Russian connection that things would have spiraled out of control, and she would have done absolutely nothing to stop it.

God, couldn’t they have at least gotten to second base?

A choked laugh fell out of her, but it hurt more than helped.

It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. 

The damage was done.

Felicity took a steadying breath and slowly blew it out.

It didn’t change what she had to do. She knew when Oliver saw what she learned about the club, he would agree that it was worth checking out. The odds of the Solnts… whatever Bratva not having a vested interest in this nightclub were slim to none after what she had found. And if they had something to do with the last club? With Camille? She wasn’t an idiot. It would be a miracle if she found anything related to Camille’s disappearance after all this time, but she had to try. If just to give Mrs. Fernandes some peace. Knowing, even if it was the worst possible outcome, was better than not knowing, right?

And if this could stop someone else from disappearing?

She couldn’t wait for this to be on Oliver’s terms. 

Felicity steeled herself.

_Now or never._

She had way more tools at her disposal these days. But more than that, she now knew how terrifying the underbelly of this city was. And how _fast_ they moved. There was plenty she could do without his help. He might think he ran the show, and maybe, technically, he did, but he didn’t run her. He didn’t get to tell her what she did and didn’t care for. She wasn’t a tool to be pointed in a direction and fired whenever he was ready.

She was her own damn tool, and she fired herself when she wanted to.

Felicity grabbed her tablet off the passenger seat and hugged it to her chest, taking a deep breath.

It was simple: break into the nightclub, plant a trojan, gain access to their network. 

She could do this. This wasn’t Merlyn Global, with all its crazy security guards and precautions and secret elevators. This was a brick building built in the 1960s sitting smack dab in the middle of the Glades, and their only line of defense were electronic keypads on their outside doors. 

Very similar to the one Oliver had used, the one she’d hot-wired as he bled away in her car.

Felicity leaned forward to look at the sky, as if a clear patch would magically appear. It didn’t. The rain wasn’t letting up. In fact, it seemed to grow worse, torrents of water slamming into her car.

She was procrastinating, and she knew it. And it was only making her nerves worse.

_You can do this._

She had to. Even if she wanted to wait for Oliver to come around, she wasn’t sure she wanted to even look at him, much less speak to him right now.

“Easy peasy lemon squeezy,” she said. 

And now she sounded like her mother.

Her phone vibrated in her coat pocket. 

Felicity jumped with a yelp. Ignoring her hammering heart, she rolled her eyes at herself and snatched it out.

Oliver’s face greeted her.

God, were his spidey senses tingling or something? 

Scowling, she sent it to voicemail. Served him right. A quick list of missed notifications popped up. She saw she’d missed two calls from her mother and two texts from Oliver.

_OQ: Hey  
OQ: Are you coming in this morning?_

“Are you kidding me?”  


Huffing, she shoved her phone back into her pocket.  


Time to work.

But first… 

Felicity plucked a little black box out of her purse. It was small, unassuming, and reduced every signal in a fifty-foot radius to static except for the ones she designated. She turned on her car radio, then clicked a button on the box.

White noise replaced the morning talk show hosts.

“Always keep the prototypes.”

Felicity grabbed her pocket umbrella, tucked her tablet inside her coat, and before she could second guess herself, got out.

The storm was even more vicious without the shelter of her car, and it instantly drenched her as she grappled with the crappy umbrella before it finally popped open. The streets were turning into rivers and lakes, and she did her best to avoid them as she darted toward the club. She looked around when she reached the mouth of the alley. 

All clear.

It did nothing to calm her pounding heart, or the adrenaline raging through her system, or stop her hands from shaking as she ran up to the side door.

A small keypad sat over the handle, strategically grafted into the blackened steel.

Moldy garbage and urine filled the air, and she wrinkled her nose, fighting to breathe through her mouth as she studied the keypad. A little overhang protected her from most of the rain, so she propped her umbrella at her feet and pulled a tiny tool from her pocket.

It took all of a second to pop the front panel off… and frown.

The circuitry was easy enough to reroute, but there was a separate line that shouldn’t be there. She wiggled it, and despite the steady hum of rain, she caught the soft clinking of something inside the door. Studying where it disappeared, she spotted a sliver in the thin metal sheet on top of the keypad. With a little wiggle, the paneling popped open. 

A fingerprint scanner. 

“Okay,” she whispered, pretending her voice wasn’t trembling. “That’s unexpected.”

She had assumed it was low level, like every other club in this region, just enough security to deter and to keep people out. But this was not that.

Her gut told her to call Oliver, but she ignored it. 

So it was a little more secure than she expected, but it wasn’t impossible.

She turned back to the circuitry and pulled out the brains of it. She tried to find where the scanner and keypad connected, but short of chiseling her way through the door, she had nothing to hot-wire. 

But she could hack it.

Painfully aware of how much time she was taking, Felicity flipped open her tablet. Pulling a cord out of her pocket, she hooked it up to the keypad. The lock was daunting, yes, but she quickly learned that was just on the surface. The code itself was relatively simple. She typed in a quick algorithm that should override… 

The door unlocked. 

Felicity threw her fist in the air. “Ha!”

Her voice echoed despite the pounding rain, and she froze. 

But nothing happened. No alarms sounded. A bunch of dogs didn’t come running out to attack her.

Releasing a heavy whoosh, she whispered, “You’ve got this,” and tugged the cord out of the keypad. She totally did. She’d just broken into a nightclub potentially owned by the Russian mob, hadn’t she? Fear carved a hole in her chest, but she didn’t let it stop her. She could do this. She didn’t need Oliver, or his overbearing weirdness, or how he threw it in her face by acting like a total dickhead because they kissed-

“So not thinking about that.”

Felicity swiped to the virus she had prepped, so she could get in, upload, and then get out-

Her tablet froze.

“What? No, what are you doing?”

She urgently tapped the screen. Random bits of code darted over it in staticky bursts.

Then it died.

Her heart stopped. “No, no, no, not now, not now.”

Felicity poked the screen, hard, and it popped back on. With a relieved breath, her heart started again… only to drop once more when the screen went black.

“Frak!” But no matter what she did, it didn’t come back. Just like last night. Like it had been doing off and on over the last few weeks. Something she hadn’t found the time to fix because if she wasn’t at Oliver’s side at Queen Consolidated, she was in his ear at the foundry. She just hadn’t had _time_ , and now it was ruining _everything_. “Frak, frak, _frak_.”

Without her tablet, there wasn’t a hack. She couldn’t get into anything. She would have to do it manually, and she was already pushing it. The whole point of this was to get in and out, not sit there for an hour so she could make herself a backdoor nobody would detect!

Frustration bubbled up, clogging her throat, and she closed her eyes. “Damn it!”

She was supposed to do this on her own, but she was barely through the door and already she was messing up. If she had the taken the time to fix her tablet, this wouldn’t be happening. If Oliver hadn’t needed her all the damn time, she would be in there with the trojan she had designed with meticulous care, the one she had used at Merlyn Global-

Her eyes snapped open. “Oh, I’m an idiot.”

She didn’t need her tablet. She needed the tech she’d designed so Oliver could just plug it into a computer, wherever he was. As long as there was a connection to a network, her program bypassed the need for a manual hack by installing a backdoor that wirelessly duplicated everything from a server onto a secure cloud where she could easily snatch it up at the foundry.

 _That_ was what she needed.

And of course it was in her desk, at Queen Consolidated, because that was where she last tested it. 

The good news was it worked. The bad news was she had to go get it. Meaning she had to go to QC.

She really, really didn’t want to do that right now.

But when she tried to restart her tablet and connect to the servers at the foundry, it died.

Shoulders slumped, nerves fraying, she put the keypad back together, grabbed her umbrella, and dashed back to her car. There was still nobody on the street. Just her, soaked to the bone with rain and growing unease.

Oliver might be at Queen Consolidated.

“It’s too early,” she told herself as she left the Glades and headed downtown. “He’s never there.” 

She kept telling herself that as she pulled into the underground parking. Her spot was eons away from Oliver’s, but that didn’t stop her from circling the garage to see if a car was there. It wasn’t. Relief washed through her. It was way too early. And Diggle didn’t drive him to work anymore. 

She was in the clear. 

Felicity parked and, with the tension draining out of her so she _could_ think, she wondered how long it would take to get back to the Glades. She stared at the floor numbers as the elevator climbed. Would she have to wait until tomorrow? It would be close to eleven by the time she slogged through the traffic and got back to the Red Room. At least if she did have to wait until tomorrow, she’d have everything she needed. And she could work on her tablet tonight. And she could avoid Oliver. The urge to call in sick was strong, but she never did that. But what she could do was schedule a bunch of the meetings he kept putting off. It would keep him out of the office and away from her. Yes, that’s what she would do.

She would deal with him when she finished this.

The elevator doors opened to the executive suites.

Felicity stepped out, holding her breath.

Silence greeted her. Complete and total silence.

Releasing a relieved, “Good,” she swept her purse off her shoulder and hurried to her desk.

A brooding figure stood at the glass behind her chair.

Felicity stopped dead in her tracks, heart spasming. When he turned to face her, her pulse dropped into an anxious thrum. The muted lighting from the storm left him in shadow. She knew it was him, but he was so far away. Untouchable. _Like always_. The feeling didn’t go away, not even when he stepped towards her.

Especially not when she saw his face.

Brow furrowed, lips pressed into a thin line, a look in his eyes she knew too well.

Her defenses immediately shored up.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Felicity replied, short and clipped. “I didn’t think Oliver Queen time started until ten thirty.”

He flinched. She thought about feeling bad for all of three seconds before she remembered his sharp words from the night before. 

And when she saw the regret stamped all over him.

She really just could not handle this right now.

Forcing herself back to her mission, Felicity walked to her desk. She didn’t look at him, but she watched him backtrack from the corner of her eye, giving her space. As if she were a wild animal locked in a cage and he was trying to placate her. 

She huffed. 

Her tolerance for the awkward silence filling the room was next to nothing. Usually she was the one filling those silences, but she didn’t have it in her. Not today.

Tossing her purse on her desk, she started scouring through the drawers. She knew the small drive was there. Somewhere. Oliver’s eyes drilling into the side of her head made the task harder than it should be. 

“We had that call with Isabel and Gotham this morning.”

Felicity stilled. It had totally slipped her mind. “Crap.”

“If I remember correctly,” Oliver continued in the same soft voice, “you told me if I skipped out on it, you would dismantle my entire world until all I had left were the sparkly red briefs I wore in that video from Vegas nobody was supposed to know about.”

“Yeah, well, if it’s on the internet-” 

“You’ll find it,” he finished. “I know.”

She glanced at him and immediately regretted it. A sad smile was on his lips, and it made the remorse pouring off him so much worse. 

Her chest bowed in, crushing her lungs into pulp.

“I got… distracted.” Her shoulders fell. Whether it was here or at the foundry, she took pride in her work, and she hated that she’d forgotten. “Not that that’s an excuse, because it’s not. I hope you saw the binder on your desk-”

“I rescheduled it.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “And Isabel was okay with that?”

“No.” He slowly shook his head. “No, she was not.”

“As if she needs more ammunition, Oliver. That was an important call-”

“I know. But it’s not as important as you.”

A tiny well of warmth blossomed in her chest and, like a moron, she wondered if he meant something more. Worse, she wished he did, because the little voice she’d been smothering all morning was horribly convincing - that something more had happened between them last night, that it wasn’t just a fluke, or an accident, or-

“I should be the one apologizing,” Oliver said. “About last night. It shouldn’t have happened.”

The words cleaved her in two. 

Of course. That was the right thing to say. The Oliver thing to say. Logic told her that. But it still felt like someone had shoved her heart into a grinder. It was one thing to think something, but it was something else entirely when the other half of the mistake said it out loud.

_The mistake._

It hadn’t felt like a mistake, though.

Her eyes darted to his lips, remembering how they felt against hers, how he tasted, what it was like to be on the receiving end of that fire burning so intensely inside him. But that was exactly what happened: he burned her. 

“You’re right.” She flashed him a brittle smile. “Nothing happened.”

He frowned. “Felicity-”

“It’s fine. You’re right.”

She turned back to her desk, blinking back a surge of tears. How _stupid_. She had spent all morning telling herself exactly what he just said, so she shouldn’t be crying. Felicity rolled her teeth over her lips and bit down until the tears dried up. She continued rummaging through the drawer, but only found red pens and paper clips. 

Her tech wasn’t in there, and only a change of clothes was in the drawer underneath it.

Felicity abruptly moved to the other side of her desk.

But Oliver was there, his hand brushing over her shoulder.

She jerked away before she could stop herself. He instantly stepped back, his brow furrowing as hurt flashed in his eyes. Felicity opened her mouth to explain, to say something, anything, but there was nothing.

Because nothing could fix what had broken last night.

She really, really didn’t want to be there anymore.

“Excuse me,” she murmured, yanking open a drawer. She didn’t see any of the contents. She only felt the squeezing in her lungs and her skin suddenly being too tight and dry.

“You’re soaking wet.”

“What?” Felicity asked, looking up with a confused frown. He stared at her coat and she followed his gaze. Her bright red jacket didn’t look water-logged, but it clung to her like a quilt, soaking her clothes underneath. She hadn’t looked at her reflection in the car or the elevator doors, but she could only imagine what her hair and makeup looked like after hanging out in a downpour. Normally she would care, but the pins and needles flooding her chest cavity were a little distracting. Turning back to the desk, she mumbled, “That’s what happens when it rains. You get wet. And not the fun kind.”

She tugged open the middle drawer.

“You should take it off,” Oliver offered. “You’re always freezing in here, that won’t help.”

“I’m going back out,” Felicity said, a little too sharply.

“What? It’s pouring out-”

She didn’t answer, because she opened the third drawer and there it was, the inelegant hunk of plastic that held her newest creation. Relief rushed through her as she picked it up, turning it over, making sure it was together and ready to go. It was.

Felicity stood and grabbed her purse.

Oliver grabbed her elbow before she could go anywhere. “What is that?”

“It’s nothing-”

“Is that the cloning tech you fashioned after the hack you did on the Merlyn mainframe?”

An irrational nip of anger bit at her. Of course, the one thing she didn’t want him paying attention to, he was. She saw the wheels turning in his head, and she knew the instant he reached a conclusion. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring, his fingers digging into her.

“What are you using that for?” he asked quietly.

She took too long to answer.

“ _Felicity_.” He gripped her tighter and abruptly tugged her into him. Her heart skidded to a halt, her mouth going dry as a fresh spike of adrenaline hit her. The Arrow glared down at her. “Tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing.”

The way he was acting should scare her, probably. But after last night, after the way he acted, how he was acting now, all it did was piss her off.

“What do you think I’m doing?” she quipped.

“Don’t play with me,” Oliver snapped. “I told you to leave the nightclub to me.”

“No,” Felicity retorted. “What you did was yell at me for no reason past that we kissed.”

His eyes flared. “That is _not_ what happened.”

“Isn’t it?” 

“No,” he bit out, “it’s not. And regardless, I told you to stop.”

She ripped her arm free. “No, you don’t get to do that. I am not a puppet you pick up and use whenever it pleases you. If that’s what you think of me, then you better fire me right now. This isn’t okay, Oliver! It’s not okay that you’re ripping into me because something that shouldn’t have happened, did. God, what is your… it’s… you’re…” Felicity growled and dug the heels of her palms into her forehead before dropping them. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Felicity-”

“I’m going.”

“No.”

“Yes,” she scoffed.

“Can’t you just…” Oliver flexed his hands, the muscle in his jaw clenching. “Leave this to me.”

“I can’t.”

Incredulity covered his face. 

“You don’t know what you’re looking for,” she told him. Her voice rose when he glowered at her. “And neither do I! That’s why I need to get in there, to see what they have-”

“Goddamn it, Felicity! This is dangerous, do you understand that? I am telling you it’s dangerous. If this is the Bratva, then you need to _leave it alone_.” She moved to argue, and he swiped his hand between them. “Enough! Jesus. What the hell is this? Why are you chasing this so hard-”

“Because it’s my fault she’s gone!”

Felicity rocketed back to the day Mrs. Fernandes told her Camille hadn’t come home, and to the days that followed. The detectives, the canvasing, the searching. The club not finding anything, the cameras seeing nothing, the police magically coming up empty-handed when they heard what club it was and where it was in the Glades. 

The memories ran her through with white hot pokers, and tears blurred her vision.

Oliver frowned, shaking his head, not following, and it all fell out of her.

“A couple days before she disappeared, I was over at their place for dinner, and she asked me about starting over. She must have seen my computer, or something, or maybe she just guessed, but she asked me about getting a new identity, about making sure someone couldn’t find her, and I… I said I couldn’t help her. I said to go to the police. Of all the stupid things, that’s what I told her to do. But I just… I had just gotten away from MIT, away from this hacktivist group I was in that had gone very bad, and my boyfriend, he… It doesn’t matter. I said no. I knew something was wrong, and I didn’t help her.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“It is. I could have done something, and I didn’t. And now she’s gone, and every day when I see Mrs. Fernandes, when she’s looking for her cat, or bringing me leftovers, or asking me to help her move something, I see what it’s doing to her. Her daughter is gone, and it is my fault.”

“Felicity-”

“So I _have_ to find out what happened to her, Oliver. I have to. Is she dead, or, god, something worse? I know what the Bratva do, I know about the prostitution rings they’re connected to. It is terrifying, and if they’re involved with this new club? With the old one? I need to know. I need to _stop it_ , because I will be damned if I let this happen to someone else. Working with you, Oliver, I’ve seen how bad people are. If it’s the Bratva or not, I have to do something. The Glades are half-collapsed, people are desperate; they’ve lost their jobs, their homes. The Bratva are exactly the kind of scum that prey on people like that. They take advantage of them, of people who have nobody to help them, like Camille-”

“Hey, hey, easy, relax.” Oliver grabbed her arms and hunkered over to meet her gaze. “Take a breath.”

Felicity did, but nothing happened. She whimpered, and he whispered, “Breathe,” before imitating the act. It felt like an eternity before her lungs finally started working, but they did. He nodded, but when he let his grip relax, her anxiety spiked. With a reedy, “Oliver,” she grabbed onto his suit jacket to keep him there. A moment ago, she wanted nothing more than to get away from him, but now he was her center of gravity. It was disconcerting, but she needed it, needed him.

If anybody could understand… 

“Listen to me,” Oliver said, rubbing her arms. “This is not your fault.”

She sniffled. “Do you believe me when I tell you that?”

He huffed, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Then take it from someone who knows. This isn’t your fault, Felicity. And I get it about the club, I do.” Relief bloomed inside her, but then he faltered, his face pinching, and the relief quickly died. “But I am asking you to please let me handle this.”

“How?” 

Oliver’s jaw tightened. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.” Felicity frowned. “I need to know what happened to her. I need to be able to tell Mrs. Fernandes what happened to her daughter.”

“And you will. But I will take care of it.”

“Oliver-”

“I’ll check out the club tonight.”

“They have the entire building locked down with keypads connected to digital fingerprint scanners,” Felicity said, her control snapping. “Tell me, Mr. Arrow, how are you going to get past that without me?”

He went still, his face blanking, his grip turning to steel. “You went to the club?”

Apprehension slithered down her spine. 

“Is that where you were this morning?” The mask slipped, and the full breadth of what he kept so deeply buried burst to the surface. Fear contorted his face, rage darkening his eyes, a storm of emotion crashing in the icy blue. “Tell me that’s not what you did.”

“What exactly was I supposed to do?”

“Leave it alone!” He abruptly released her and spun away, his hands flying to his face. Fury radiated through him as he wheeled back to glare at her. “If I tell you to stop something, you _stop_. It’s that simple. God, Felicity, you can’t possibly…”

“What?” she demanded when he didn’t finish. “I can’t possibly understand? Well, you’re right about that, because you aren’t telling me anything. Instead of talking to me, you’re yelling-”

“Is that what this is for?” he interrupted, grabbing her hand that held her tech.

“My tablet isn’t working-”

Oliver snatched the tech from her fingers.

Felicity gasped and lurched for him. “Give it back.”

“If you think for one second that I’m letting you go back there,” Oliver growled, “you've got another thing coming.”

Somewhere in her mind, she recognized the urgency in him. She felt the desperation, knew it was coming from something, that there was a reason for it. She knew this man better than herself sometimes, and she knew he wouldn’t act like this for no reason.

But it was a little hard to think through the haze of anger coloring her world at his audacity.

“ _Letting_ me?” she spat. “If you think I won’t just do the hack myself-”

He got in her face. “Do not go back there.”

“Oliver-”

“I said I will handle it!”

“You keep saying that, but I don’t know what that means-”

“It means you need to fucking _listen_ when I tell you-”

“Guys!” Diggle materialized and pushed them apart. “What the hell is going on?” 

“Nothing,” Oliver bit out.

“ _Nothing_?” Felicity repeated. “Oliver-”

“No.” He slashed his hand through the air. “Stop searching. Just stop! Don’t go there, don’t do _anything_ , do you hear me?”

“Whoa, hey,” Diggle said with censure, coming between them.

“Stop treating me like I’m-”

“Just leave it alone!”

His voice carried through the entire floor on a wave of anger that nearly swept her off her feet. Diggle frowned, staring at Oliver in disbelief. But none of the emotion swirling in the room had anything on the pressure building in Felicity’s chest. Because Oliver just stared at her, daring her to keep pushing.

She wanted to. She wanted to push him right out the fucking window.

“I need some air,” Felicity said. 

She grabbed her purse and left without looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
>  **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


	4. Tuesday 7 p.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver talks to the Bratva.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that when I first started the original Blood Hands, Oliver and Felicity were not going to get together? It was designed as a complete canon insert, meant to slip between 2x06 and 2x07. I, of course, realized that was stupid as I continued writing it. But even then, I kept very strictly to canon, which turned the fic into an epic slow burn. It would have had Olicity coming together, but I also would have ended it ambiguously because of when this story is set. But with this version? I went into it with the explicit intention of Oliver and Felicity getting together. As if this were a goddamn romance novel. I wanted them _together_ , and they are both so severely not ready to be together right now, which meant I had to break them down and rebuild from the rubble - all within the seven days this fic covers.
> 
> The conflict is just beginning. They literally push each other to the breaking point.
> 
> Starting...
> 
> Now.
> 
> Thank you for the incredible response so far! I hope you enjoy this update, please let me know what you think - especially if you've read the original!

  
(97 hours before the gala)

_… dreams of war, dreams of liars, dreams of dragon’s fire…_

Broken asphalt caught on the wheels of the Mercedes.

The bright, active cityscape that defined downtown Starling City slowly gave way to rubble. Half-torn buildings sat next to smashed storefronts, shattered brick and broken glass littering the ground, trash filling the gutters. Forgotten memorials crowded the sidewalks, flowers long-ago wilted, melted candles fused to the sidewalks.

Cardboard signs and graffitied walls welcomed them to the Glades.

_“Vote for Blood!”_

_“Remember the 503”_

_“Kill the Killers”_

A group of people huddled around a garbage can fire looked up as one as they drove by. One of them broke away to throw something after the Mercedes. It narrowly missed them, shattering on the ground instead.

Long before the earthquake leveled it, the Glades had suffered, falling victim to crooks and crime lords, violence and bloodshed, an open wound primed for infection to set in. An infection like the Bratva. All it took was a single seed for a full-out, completely silent infestation to grow and thrive. Impossible to eradicate, impossible to operate without. 

Oliver dug his thumbnail into the side of his finger as hard as he could. He had taken care of this. They shouldn’t be here. None of this should be happening.

He checked his phone. No new calls. Nothing from Anatoly, despite his urgent messages.

Nothing from Felicity.

The knot in his chest twisted tight, strangling him.

“Are we gonna talk about it?”

Oliver pressed his lips into a thin line.

“Fine, I’ll get things rolling then,” Diggle said. “Should we talk about whatever the hell it was that I walked into earlier? Or that I’ve never seen you losing your shit like that? Or that you were doing it with Felicity, of all people? Or maybe we should talk about Felicity telling me she’s staying home tonight. That hasn’t happened in _months_ , and the last time it did it was because it was a quiet night and she invited us over for pizza. I don’t really see her inviting you anywhere ever again after this.”

Oliver clutched his phone so hard something cracked. 

He really didn’t need Diggle pointing out how screwed to hell everything was right now. That they were heading to a meeting with the Bratva was plenty indication nothing was how it should be. Or that he’d spent the entire day crawling up the fucking walls. Or that Felicity hadn’t come back, hadn’t responded to his texts, had said nothing to him.

Oliver lost count of how many times he pulled up the app she designed to ping her phone. Just to make sure. But she was home, where she belonged, safe and sound.

It was exactly what he wanted. What he _needed_. It didn’t matter that this was the second time he’d chased her away, or that he had to keep biting his tongue to keep from asking Diggle to forget the meeting and go to her instead.

The problem was that he didn’t know what he would do: apologize, or lose it all over again.

“So, considering where we’re going, I’m assuming you know more about this club than you’re letting on,” Diggle contemplated. “Is that what the fight was about?”

Oliver fought the urge to rip a hole in the car door.

Diggle sighed. “As much as I enjoy seeing your balls busted, I don’t like how you bit her head off like that. And I know you don’t either, so what the hell’s going on in that head of yours?”

“It’s nothing.”

“That’s a load of shit.” Diggle waited a beat, then shook his head. “You know, whatever’s going on with you and this club, whatever involves the Bratva? Taking it out on her isn’t helping a damn thing.”

“I’m not taking it out on her,” Oliver growled.

Diggle snorted. 

“It’s…” Oliver made a fist. “ _Complicated_.”

“What, this job, or you and Felicity?” Diggle asked. Oliver glared at the back of his head, but the other man ignored him. “The longer I know you, Oliver, the more I realize that everything with you is complicated. Because you make it that way.”

“I asked her to stop searching and to stay away from that goddamn club, and she didn’t. That’s not me making things complicated, that’s her. And I did it to keep her away from the Bratva.”

“Which she would know if you told her.”

“The less she knows about this, the better,” Oliver fired back. “Why the hell do you think I didn’t involve her in any of it when we went to Russia? The Bratva are dangerous-”

“She’s not stupid, Oliver,” Diggle interrupted. “You think she doesn’t know that? Look at what we do every day. Sometimes it works out, but other times, the bad guys win. If you think she doesn’t get that, then you’re not paying attention. And she told me what she found. About the investors being connected to the Bratva, about the names attached to the club where her friend went missing, and how they’re also attached to the Red Room. It sounds like a damn good lead. And you obviously agree, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. So why is she at home and we’re here? Is it because she went there by herself? Yeah, that was pretty damn stupid, I agree, and she knew it wasn’t the smartest-”

“And yet she still went there,” Oliver snapped. “After I told her I would take care of it.”

“Her friend went missing, man. She’s looking for answers. She’s doing what she always does, what you always ask her to do - she’s digging deeper. Covering her bases, crossing the t’s, dotting the i’s.”

He made it sound so goddamn benign, like all she’d done was check the fucking weather.

“All I’m saying,” Diggle continued, “is that she needs you on her side. You want her to trust you when you tell her to stop something? You need to trust her right back by telling her why.”

Oliver’s throat squeezed shut, and he closed his eyes.

She could never know.

They pulled into the parking lot of the Russian auto yard.

The headlights were the only illumination save for thin shafts of moonlight cutting through remnant storm clouds. A lone light hung over the entrance to the building, catching the edge of the garage’s name painted in Cyrillic and English next to the rusted bay doors. The building had escaped most of the destruction from the earthquake, but he could still see its impact in a long crack cutting through the asphalt next door, in the fallen light pole across the street.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Oliver said before climbing out. 

The rainy day left the air crisp and cold. It nipped at his ears, his every breath coming out in foggy exhales as he scanned the area before heading to the entrance.

Diggle whispered something under his breath as he followed. 

Oliver ignored him. He knew he was being a dick, knew he was handling this like an asshole, but he didn’t care. Not if this involved the Bratva. Diggle and Felicity made it seem as simple as throwing the hood on and taking out a few gangsters. What they didn’t know was that the Bratva thrived in the shadows. Their entire MO was guerilla warfare. While one thing was going on - the club, for example, and god only fucking knew what else they were getting into - a hundred other things were happening in the background, things a thousand times worse than what they showed in the light of day.

And it sounded like her friend Camille had gotten swept up in something just like that.

Red stained the edges of Oliver’s world.

Not here. Not in his city. Never again.

“You remember what happened last time?” Oliver gritted out.

“You mean your ‘favor’ to your buddy in there?”

Oliver shot him a glare. “Yes. Same rules. Just go along with whatever happens.”

He ripped open the metal door.

Darkness greeted them. Oil, gasoline and burnt rubber saturated the air. The door shut with a heavy slam behind them. Oliver paused long enough for his eyes to adjust before he saw the dark outlines of cars and empty workstations. In the far corner, a muted desk lamp was on, shining down on an empty workbench. His senses lit up as they walked further into the large room. Oliver had expected Alexi to be waiting for him, but there was nobody, nothing. 

A shadow moved. 

Oliver’s vision sharpened with the clarity of a predator and he moved, his hands coming up to attack.

Diggle grabbed his shoulder.

To anyone watching, it was a protective bodyguard keeping his client safe, but to them, it was a friend anchoring him back to reality with a harsh, “Oliver,” that only he heard. 

The blocky lines of Alexi’s mechanic slowly took shape.

“Mr. Queen,” the man said, his accent thick. The ambient light highlighted the lump of what Oliver assumed was a small pistol in one pocket and the silver handle of a wrench in another. “You are early. Mr. Leonov will be up soon.”

Oliver shrugged Diggle off and glowered at the man. “I’m not early. He’s late. Take me to him now.”

The mechanic didn’t budge.

A dozen different ways to make him move filtered through Oliver’s mind, all of them involving the satisfying crunch of broken cartilage and bone. Oblivious to the lethal air, or maybe he was simply as stupid as Oliver remembered him being, the Russian smirked. Oliver narrowed his eyes, his hands twitching. 

Diggle shifted behind him, stepping closer. 

Not to protect Oliver, but to stop him.

He wished he hadn’t brought him.

“He will be up soon,” the mechanic repeated. He dared to step forward and touch Oliver’s arm. “You will-”

Before Diggle could react, Oliver grabbed the mechanic’s hand and twisted it with a vicious crack. The man cried out, but Oliver only pushed his arm up behind his back with so much force he nearly ripped right through his tendons.

“ _I’ve killed men for less_ ,” Oliver growled in Russian.

“ _I meant no disrespect_ ,” the mechanic groaned, but even through the pain, Oliver could tell he wasn’t sincere.

With a contemplative grunt, Oliver grabbed one of the man’s fingers and broke it. The man shouted and his legs buckled. The only reason he didn’t go down was Oliver’s grip on him was too tight, and they both knew the drop would pull his arm out of his socket. 

“ _Then fucking act like it_ ,” Oliver said.

He twisted the man’s arm further and yanked him upright, just enough for Oliver to pull the wrench and gun out of his pockets before releasing him. The mechanic stumbled away, cradling his injured hand to his chest. Oliver threw the wrench across the room. The clang of it hitting a car echoed the metal-on-metal slide as he quickly disassembled the pistol and tossed the pieces away.

“ _I don’t have time for games_ ,” Oliver bit out. “ _Take me to Alexi now. I will not ask again_.”

A door opened in the far corner.

“I thought I heard a ruckus. I should have known that meant Oliver Queen was here.” Alexi’s smirk was clear in his voice as he walked toward them. He glanced at his mechanic. “I see you have gotten reacquainted.”

The mechanic spat at Oliver’s feet. “ _Mudak_.”

Oliver’s eyes sharpened at the insult. “What did you just say?”

“Let our tempers rest. We are all friends, no?” Alexi patted his mechanic on the arm before facing Oliver. “What can I do for you, my friend? There’s no gulags here in Starling City.”

That this man knew anything about their trip to Russia - about Diggle, about _Felicity_ \- had him wanting to rip the man’s head off.

“Anatoly talks too much.”

Amusement colored the man’s face. “ _Yes. It’s true_.”

“ _I will address that with Anatoly_ ,” Oliver replied in Russian, “ _but in the meantime, I suggest you stop gossiping like an old wife and stick to your strengths_.”

Alexi’s smirk disappeared as the threat in Oliver’s voice charged the air. They both knew there was little he could really do. He had asserted no claim on the city within the brotherhood, past his request to Anatoly before coming back, which had left the remaining faction for Alexi to run as he saw fit.

That didn’t change their positions in the Bratva, though.

Despite his obvious displeasure, Alexi nodded his acquiescence.

“Good,” Oliver said. “Now tell me about the Red Room.”

Alexi wasn’t fast enough to hide his surprise before his face went blank. “The Red Room?”

“I may not be directly involved in Bratva business right now, but I am very aware of what’s happening in my city.”

“I suppose I should have expected your interest,” Alexi mused. “When I first inquired about you, Anatoly told me of your prior involvement in such matters. He also mentioned what you did with Matvei Ikashev when he betrayed the brotherhood. I had heard of the incident at the Kaliningrad port, but I did not know that was you.”

It was the last thing Oliver expected to hear.

_… the click of an empty chamber, the sticky warmth of blood cooling on his hands, the distinct snap of Matvei’s spine breaking in two, the ugly burn of cold air, the stench of spoiled meat, his choked coughs to dispel the taste of it as he pulled on the chains, the sharp rattles followed by the dull thuds of bodies hitting wet concrete…_

Nothing he had done that day had been for the brotherhood. Not a goddamn thing. 

Oliver wanted to shout it, to deny the credit Anatoly had worked so hard to give him, but he didn’t dare. It was the only reason he could stand here with the ranking of a vory. But also Diggle stood right behind him. 

He forced himself to dip his head in acknowledgement, one Alexi returned.

“My apologies for the greeting,” Alexi said. The mechanic’s dead eyes drilled into Oliver, but he didn’t spare the Russian another glance. “It is precaution. We have been clearing the decks, if you will, and there has been much resistance.”

Oliver frowned. “Clearing the decks.”

“Underground operations, smaller rings, smaller players. As you well know, business does best when under one umbrella. Now, they all answer to Bratva.”

Ice filled Oliver’s stomach. This had all been happening right under his nose. For how long? And for what? And worse, would he have noticed anything if Felicity hadn’t been looking into the club in the first place?

“Come, let us go downstairs and we will discuss.”

Oliver followed on stilted legs, the mechanic and Diggle falling in step behind them.

“ _Is this going to be like Budapest?_ ” Oliver asked in Russian over the clatter of the stairs they descended. “ _Or is this another Rostok?_ ”

Alexi smirked over his shoulder. “An operation like Rostok would make the Glades much more inviting, yes? But no, too much red tape for something like a red-light district. This is much simpler. Or complicated, depending on how you view it. There has been much to do in recent weeks, as I’m sure you remember from Budapest.”

Ash filled Oliver’s mouth, and he fought the urge to look back to see if Diggle heard. 

“Yes,” he forced himself to say.

He followed Alexi to the long table that’d been there at his last visit. Just like then, greasy tools and dusty car parts covered it, but this time there were also vodka bottles with varying levels of liquor, used glasses, cell phones, and a brand new laptop. Piles of paper covered the rest of the surface. Oliver glanced at a few that were facing up. Lists of various odds and ends, several account ledgers with money figures ranging well into the six- and seven-digit range, shipping manifests. Stacked along the far edge of the table were thin folders, dozens of them… 

A photo stuck out of one.

In it, an unsmiling redheaded woman stared straight into the camera.

Alarm ripped through Oliver and it took everything in him not to upend the table.

“What is this?” he asked, eyes never leaving the photo.

“I have become… application center, if you will.” Alexi held his hands out to the mess on the table. “Or ‘processing center,’ might be better. There are many requests that need filling. The good thing about requisitioning our former opponents is they can now do scouting for us. Well, the ones that know what is good for them. I’m sure you are familiar with the process. There are also many positions to fill in the clubs, and I am responsible-”

“Clubs,” Oliver interrupted. “How many exactly are there?”

Alexi shrugged. “Five, right now. More soon.”

The words punched him in the gut. 

One had been too many, but _five_? And more coming? This wasn’t a simple one-off being established. It was the beginning of a full-scale operation. The second Felicity mentioned that club, he should have known. The Bratva didn’t do half-measures - it was all or nothing.

And this was clearly _all_.

Oliver’s eyes drifted back to the folders. Easily a couple hundred sat there, if not more.

He was going to throw up. 

Alexi turned to a shelf and grabbed two clean shot glasses. He dropped them on the table and snatched up a half-empty bottle. 

“First, we drink.”

He poured the vodka. The liquid sloshed over the sides of each glass, pooling on the metal table. He slid one to Oliver and raised his own glass towards him.

“ _To brothers_.”

He stated it as a simple fact. Because that’s what they were: brothers. Regardless of anything, they were part of the brotherhood, and as brothers in the Bratva, they shared a responsibility to the world they owed their lives to.

The world where women were bartered with, sold, ruined…

Destroyed.

Oliver picked up the glass and just barely kept from shoving it into Alexi’s forehead.

To get what he needed, he had to play the part.

Vodka dripped down his fingers as he raised the glass with a low, “ _To brothers_.”

They drank. 

“So.” Alexi waved at him. “What are your interests in the clubs? Investment? Or something further, perhaps? You are already in the system, it would be easy enough to get you codes for access. I’m sure they would benefit greatly from your expertise. I only heard good things about Katrya’s.”

Oliver nearly dropped the shot glass as a red hot spike shot through his heart. 

It had been a long, long time since he’d heard that name, much less let himself think it.

“I don’t want to be involved,” Oliver said harshly. Alexi frowned at his tone, and Oliver forced a smile to his lips. “That was a long time ago. When I had more time. I don’t have that luxury at the moment.”

“Yes, you have your company. Although that pesky business with Merlyn and the, uh, what was it, the Undertaking? Seems to have muddied the waters a bit, no? From what I gather, though, things are not as smooth sailing as they could be. I trust you’ll remember the resources you have at your disposal with the Bratva. Sometimes the removal of a hindrance can make the waters much smoother.” Alexi gave him a chilling smile. “It is a specialty of mine.”

As tempting as it would be to get Isabel off his back, having her removed from the picture altogether was not the solution. 

And the last thing he needed was to owe this man any favors.

“I can handle my own affairs,” Oliver replied. “Starting with investment. As you mentioned, I could use a new venture right now, and I know how… lucrative these can be. But I would need to know more about the operation and who’s running it before I did anything.”

Alexi hummed. “I understand. Unfortunately, I do not have that information.”

Oliver glared at him. “I don’t have time for this, Alexi.”

“I don’t have the information. I am a mere facilitator. A cog in the machine.”

“Then what the fuck is all this?” Oliver waved at the table.

“Preparation.” Alexi regarded him with cool amusement. “You know how _picky_ some of our patrons can be, _Kapitan_. How particular. I am merely paving the way for what is to come. Bratva has not had a foothold in Starling City in many years. That is changing, and because I have my finger on the pulse of this city, I am overseeing the construction of these changes. Part of that is assisting with the product.”

Oliver’s eye twitched at the way he said _product_.

“So you know nothing?” 

Alexi spread his hands in supplication. “It is not my place. But I know where you can get it. There is a charity gala taking place in Central City this Saturday. Many people will be there, including the parties you seek. Perhaps it is there you can meet to discuss… business.”

For a beat, all Oliver could do was stare at the other man. 

This was bigger and far more advanced than he could have dreamed.

If it was happening in Central City, that meant they already had that city in their pocket, and were looking to the next step: the western seaboard. A one-percenter party was the perfect ruse. Openly giving to charity while integrating into city leadership and garnering clients to keep under their thumb. Not just in Central City, but in Starling City. He was sure if he looked at the guest list, he would see several heavy-hitters in attendance. But it was also a simple way to get top level Bratva in one place. It would be easy enough to slip away, to take a few minutes here and there, to handle things between people who couldn’t be seen together.

Behind those closed doors was where deals were made, where local and international chapters met… 

Where the sort of things people either bragged about for months or never spoke of again happened.

The very last place he wanted to be was at that gala.

“I just need the names,” Oliver said, fighting to keep his voice even. “I will contact them myself.”

“As I said, I do not have that information. Surely since you are getting involved in Bratva business again, you would want to attend the gala, no? To mingle with your brothers.”

_No._

He kept himself distant on purpose, only contacting them when he needed them, only playing along with Alexi’s favors because it was the bare minimum he needed to respect the Code, to maintain his standing. The brotherhood was a valuable ally to have in his back pocket. 

It was what came with it that turned his stomach inside out.

But the Bratva were careful, exceedingly so, and Alexi knowing just enough to do his role was evidence of that. Oliver knew he wasn’t lying, because that’s how they worked. In layers. Bits and pieces at different times by different people until it all suddenly came together, and then it was too late to stop it.

Even one name wouldn’t be enough, Oliver knew. Not if it involved Central City, and especially not if it involved Moscow. If this was anything like what happened in Europe, he needed the carefully guarded web of those involved at the very top.

And nobody would know those names but the people in that web.

Oliver nearly ground his teeth to dust as he gave Alexi what he hoped was an affable nod.

“Excellent. I will get a ticket for you so you can attend. But first, I need something, and you are in a unique position to get it for me.”

Alexi reached into the flap of his work jumper and pulled out a picture. 

Oliver stilled as he placed it face-down on the table and slid it over to him.

“What is this?”

“One of our special requests,” Alexi told him. “We have been tracking her, but have had a difficult time finding a way to remove her without suspicion. You get me this within twenty-four hours and I will get you a ticket to the gala, as well as a way to get the names you seek. There is a caveat: the merchandise must be alive upon delivery. But that should be easy for you, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Considering she works for you.”

A chill cut down Oliver’s spine and he flipped the picture over.

It was a long-range photo of Felicity walking into Queen Consolidated.

Oliver’s ribs contracted, squeezing his lungs into nothing as a cascade of despair crashing through him. Buzzing filled his ears, stinging heat searing his gut, his shaking fingers making the picture vibrate.

It couldn’t be real, but it was. It was her, his Felicity, in her red raincoat, her hair pulled back, eyes glued on her phone, barely holding her flimsy umbrella straight over her head.

“She is your assistant, yes?”

A quick intake of air behind him.

Oliver covered the picture with his shaking hand and crumpled it as he looked at Alexi. The fucker just smiled at him, and it took everything in him to keep from smacking that smug look right off his face. But it wasn’t enough. His feet moved to vault at the man, his hands already curling in preparation of grabbing his throat, the edges of his vision turning hazy. With a silent snarl, Oliver snaked his left hand under the metal table and gripped the sharp edge to keep himself in place.

“She is a fine piece,” Alexi continued, “but I’m sure you’ll have no trouble replacing her.”

_Not on your fucking life._

That was why Alexi was asking him. Oliver had direct access to her. His hand was in the proverbial jar and the Bratva expected him to use it. It helped that he was a public figure, that he was in a unique position in her life that wouldn’t warrant much question past, “ _When was the last time you saw your assistant, Mr. Queen?_ ”

His chest burned.

They wanted Felicity.

His eyes dropped to the photo clenched tight in his fist. He didn’t have to see it to know how oblivious she was, completely unaware that someone was watching her, following her every move.

A gnawing hole opened up deep inside him. If it was anything like what the brotherhood had taught him, it wasn’t just mere surveillance. Not for someone like her. And he knew that was exactly what this was. She had dug into something they didn’t want anyone near. And the worst part? It was an honest mistake. She just wanted information, like always, but she’d knocked on the wrong fucking door. And the Bratva always struck back - an example had to be made, one that would echo through the community: _do not fuck with us_. It wasn’t enough to kill someone anymore. The favor had to be returned tenfold.

He caught the edge of her red coat between his fingers.

It was the same coat she’d been wearing this morning.

_No, not her, not Felicity_.

The thought of them even breathing the same air as Felicity - of them even being close enough to do so, of them _taking her_ -

He turned hard eyes back to Alexi, and the world blurred.

_… flipping the table, papers scattering through the air, Oliver spinning to the workbench behind him, grabbing the hammer, smashing it against the mechanic’s temple, deflecting Alexi’s attempt to hit him before bludgeoning the Russian into a bloody pulp to the sound of Diggle screaming his name…_

But he didn’t move. 

Oliver gripped the metal table harder, trying to control the anger rushing through him before he did something he couldn’t take back. _Think_. But he couldn’t. He wanted to rip through everything in this room, through every person involved, whoever made the request, whoever was watching her, Alexi, the bastard mechanic breathing too heavily to his left, everything and everyone, all to keep them away from her. He wanted it so badly he could taste it, could feel the blood spattering, hear the crunch of bone turning to mulch… 

The metal edge sliced into his fingers.

Pain cut through the fog. 

His head cleared enough for him to take a breath. And then another. Oliver pressed harder, and it cut deeper. He concentrated on the burn until it pushed the darkness back just enough. The shock of fresh blood grounded him even more, but it was only when the buzzing in his ears abated that he finally let go.

Blood dripped from his fingers and he pressed his hand to his thigh to staunch the flow.

Alexi was talking, he absently realized.

“Who wants her?” Oliver demanded, cutting through whatever the Russian had been saying.

Alexi paused. “That is of little consequence.”

“Not to me.” Oliver glared at him. “ _Who wants her?_ ”

“You know how Bratva works,” Alexi replied after a moment. “I get request. I fill it. Done. Simple.”

“Who _wants her_?”

“If you cannot handle this, _Kapitan_ ,” Alexi said with a mocking frown, “just tell me-”

Oliver moved faster than anyone could see. His left hand flew out and snatched the collar of Alexi’s jumper. The mechanic shouted, surging forward, but Oliver didn’t care, didn’t pay attention, not even when Diggle caught the other man. All his attention was on the bastard before him as he yanked him closer, his stocky girth hitting the table with so much force several of the folders fell to the floor.

“She is _mine_ ,” Oliver snarled. “Nobody touches her, nobody goes _near_ her, not unless they want to deal with me.” He leaned in, staring Alexi dead in the eye. “Do you understand?”

When he didn’t respond fast enough, Oliver shook him.

“Do. You. Understand?”

“ _Da_.”

Oliver abruptly let him go and Alexi fell onto the table. More folders fell and a vodka bottle keeled over. 

“There won’t be any favors this time,” Oliver bit out. “I want the names of the people involved in the clubs, and I want them tomorrow. If I don’t get them, it won’t matter how close to Anatoly you are, you’ll be begging for death by the time I’m done with you.”

Alexi’s face was stone, but he couldn’t hide the flicker of fear in his eyes.

“ _Tomorrow_ ,” Oliver growled, glaring a hole into Alexi’s forehead before he turned away.

Diggle was right at his back, urgency radiating off him that damn near matched his own. Oliver’s left fingers pulsated in time with his pounding heart, the blood making his skin slick as he took the stairs two at a time. Diggle was talking, asking questions, demanding answers, but none of it landed. All he saw was the door, and then the next door.

All that mattered was getting to Felicity. 

Because she wasn’t alone. 

He closed his fist around the crumpled photo he still held, crushing it as if that alone might make it cease to exist. But it _did_. Someone was following her, someone was there right now-

Alexi could call ahead, and by the time they got to her she could be gone.

With a vicious curse, Oliver shoved through the exit, sending the metal door ricocheting off the concrete wall with a crash. He heard Diggle cursing behind him, but he didn’t stop, rounding the Mercedes to the driver’s side door as he shoved the picture into his pocket.

He yanked on the door handle, but nothing happened.

“Unlock it,” he ordered. 

“Oliver-”

“Unlock the fucking door,” Oliver snarled, slamming his hand on the roof. “Now!”

A chirp sounded and Oliver ripped open the door and climbed in. Diggle scrambled into the passenger side with a harried, “What is-”

“ _Keys_ ,” Oliver demanded, holding out a trembling palm.

There was another second of hesitation, a second that lasted a goddamn _eternity_ , and just when Oliver was about to blow a fucking gasket, Diggle dropped the fob into his hand.

Oliver jammed the key into the ignition and he barely had the car in gear before he was backing out, sending dust and debris flinging everywhere. He whipped out of the lot, the undercarriage scraping the ground, sparking against the asphalt. He blew through a red light, causing another car to slam on their brakes with an ugly squeal. He sped around someone else, wrenching the Mercedes wildly, smearing blood all over the leather-bound wheel.

“What the hell was that, Oliver?” 

Instead of the foot of space separating them, it was an ocean of darkness that Diggle’s voice barely penetrated.

As Oliver dodged around yet another car, gunning the engine, his mind spun out of control. They wanted Felicity. They knew what she’d been doing, and now they were going after her. What were they going to do? Horror twisted his insides, and he urged the car to go faster. Would they make an example of her, like they had with so many others? Or would they kill her, or… 

No.

She was young, beautiful, vivacious. Spend five minutes with her and anyone would know she’s passionate and didn’t back down when pushed. Hell, that was why he’d lost it, because she didn’t stop, she _never_ stopped when she put her mind to something, not even when he asked her to.

How many requests had Katrya’s gotten for _feisty_ girls in Budapest?

Images from the past bombarded him, mixing with the present, with what the future could be.

_… Felicity unconscious on the floor of a box far too small for any human being, limbs twisted unnaturally to fit, clothes torn, lip bruised and bloodied, a welt on her forehead already swelling… red, hand-shaped marks on her neck… dangerously pale, broken nails, smudged makeup and wet cheeks, fear saturating the air… disappearing from view as they shut the box up tight, drilling holes into the top and sides before picking it up without care and stacking it alongside a dozen others just like it, ready to ship off to god only knew where…_

Gone.

Forever.

How many times had he seen boxes just like that stacked in warehouses in Russia? Entire walls of empty shipping crates, never to be used again - “ _When we have too many boxes, we burn them, to save space_.” How many times had he not asked questions, not wondered _why_ they were there at all, why they were being torched? 

Because dried blood and scratch marks created a customs nightmare.

The thought of that happening to Felicity… 

Oliver slammed his fist into the steering wheel.

But they were already there. They’d been following her, watching her. God, and he hadn’t even _known_ , so caught up in his own bullshit he hadn’t seen the wolves already at her back.

Oliver glanced at the dashboard clock. They were still at least five minutes away, which meant he’d been driving for at least ten. He had no memory of it. With a hard, “Damn it,” he yanked his phone out of his pocket. His fingers stuck together, the blood hot and slick, leaving messy fingerprints all over the phone screen.

There was a missed call from Russia, and a few from Thea, but he scrolled past them to Felicity.

It just rang. It _never_ just rang. When her voicemail kicked in, her cheerful greeting sent his heart climbing up his throat. He left her a message, the desperation in his voice tangible.

He barely waited five seconds before calling again.

“Hey!”

“What?” Oliver snapped, turning a glare on Diggle.

“Did you not hear anything I just said?” Diggle asked. “Oliver, what the hell happened back there?”

“It’s Felicity,” was all he managed. His heart beat too fast, the limbs shaking, his lips numbing. “They want Felicity, they…” He slammed his fist against the steering wheel again. Diggle clenched his jaw as Oliver just drove faster. “I have to get to her. We have to get to her. Now.”

Diggle’s silence told Oliver he knew exactly what that meant.

Oliver tried her phone again. Same thing. “She’s never more than five feet from her phone. Something’s wrong. Will you-”

“I already did. A few times while you were snarling at the road.” Fear rang loud and clear in his voice, as much as he tried to control it. “She didn’t answer. I tried pinging her phone, but she turned the app off, so she could be…”

_Gone_.

Oliver ignored the thought and the subsequent stab of panic as he finally reached her street. He whipped down the car-lined road, taking the little turn with too much force, and driving right up to her door.

The second the car was in park, he was out the door and headed towards her apartment. 

Her lights were on.

A rash of anger overtook his fear. Goddamn her! If she hadn’t gotten involved, if she’d just left it alone, if she’d just come to him earlier, none of this would be happening.

“Oliver, wait.” Diggle appeared out of nowhere, grabbing his arm in a vice grip. “Just wait.”

“Let. Go,” Oliver bit out. 

“I get it,” Diggle said. “I heard him, too, but-”

“No, you don’t get it!” Oliver snapped, wrenching his arm away. “She _went there_ , looking for them, and now they know who she is and they _want_ her. You don’t know what they’re capable of, or what they…” The words choked off. If he said them, then they’d be real. It would happen to her. The picture burned a hole in his pocket and Oliver shoved Diggle aside with a, “I need to see her.”

“No,” Diggle said, intercepting him again. “No, you are way too steamed right now. You need to calm down.”

“Get out of my way-”

“I’ll talk to her, okay?” Diggle’s words were gentle, but his grip was not when he grabbed Oliver’s arm again. Oliver had to force himself not to rip it off, especially when Diggle kept talking. “You already bit her head off once today, she doesn’t need you barging in there and losing it on her again, okay?”

“I would never hurt her.”

Diggle frowned. “I know that. That’s not what I’m-”

A quick flick of his arm had Diggle losing his grip and in the next second Oliver was at her door.

He slammed his fist against it, making it rattle. “Felicity!” His hand flew to the knob, not caring that he was probably scaring the hell out of her by ripping the door off its goddamn hinges…

It wasn’t locked.

The door swung open to her brightly lit apartment.

And no Felicity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
> **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


	5. Tuesday 9 p.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver finds Felicity, and his fears get the best of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter holds one of my favorite moments in the story. 
> 
> I have changed a lot, but some of the next couple of chapters/scenes will feel familiar from the original. In architecture, more than anything. Enjoy!

  
(95 hours before the gala)

_… harvest the land, taking of the fallen lamb…_

“If you’re not careful, your face’ll be stuck that way.”

Felicity’s head jerked up from the code running across her tablet screen. “Huh?”

The barista - really, the owner of The Coffee Nook who worked the bar - smiled at her. Even with exhaustion and frustration riding her, it still made her heart do a little flip. The coffee had always been amazing, but when he appeared, his dark chocolate eyes and olive skin had made hanging out there oh so much better. 

Nick dropped into the chair across from her, brushing his black hair off his forehead as he nodded at her tablet.

“You’ve been glaring at that thing since you walked in six hours ago.”

“Six hours?” Felicity grabbed her phone, ignoring the notifications to see the time. “Oops.”

Nick chuckled. “You’re on your fourth latte, and you’re surprised it’s been six hours? Speaking of…” He pulled out a little paper flower and handed it to her. “Your receipts, madam.”

“Thank you.” She took it with a smile and brought it to her nose. The distinct scent of the espresso beans he always stashed in there was heavenly. She tilted them into her hand and popped the beans into her mouth. “I’ve just been… concentrating.”

“Pretty hard.”

That was an understatement considering how desperately she’d lost track of time.

Felicity stretched, groaning when her spine bitched at her. Her jeans had become one with her stomach at some point and when she yawned, the pain lingering in her chin made her eyes water. Her head pounded with a dull headache and her eyes felt like they were going to fall right out of her head from staring at tablet’s operating system for hours.

Something was wrong. Like, virus-levels of wrong, based on how it was acting, and she was going to find out why. Even if it killed her. Which it might if she didn’t take a break.

“You okay?”

The question had her looking back at the handsome man sitting at her table. She saw him nearly every morning, but her heart still did a little jump around him. Because he was cute, and sweet, and smiled at her, and always had her coffee ready with a joke and a paper flower. 

He was everything Oliver wasn’t.

That sobered her.

She had spent most of the day trying to make sense of how quickly and badly things had unraveled. But no matter what logic path she took, his anger still shook her. He never yelled at her, never lashed out like that. Not before last night. Her face heated as humiliation washed over her. It was the only explanation, the only thing that was different. How could a kiss have her world ripping apart at the seams like this? _Because it was with Oliver._ Except it wasn’t. It was nothing like that. Instead of the grand romantic gesture she secretly dreamed about, it was simply two touch-starved people giving into a momentary lapse of sanity.

Like what happened with Isabel in Russia, which he himself had said meant nothing.

_A mistake._

One was ruining the relationship they had. The one that had worked. 

Pain sliced deep, and with a shaky breath she made herself look at the man before her.

“I’m fine,” Felicity finally replied with an attempt at a smile as she slouched back over her tablet.

“Come on, _tesoro_ ,” Nick said. The word rolled off his tongue in a purposefully thickened Italian accent that made her smile real. “What’s going on?”

“Tesoro,” she repeated. Her tongue butchered it to hell. “I never asked what that means.”

“It means darling in Italian.” He winked at her. 

Felicity’s cheeks warmed. Why couldn’t everything be as simple as this? A cute guy flirting with her, not in an overbearing way, but actually being kind and genuine, if the look in his eyes was any indicator. For a second, she was just a girl in a coffee shop and her biggest concern was whether to flirt back.

She ducked her head to hide a blush. “Well, that’s…” 

A flash of code on her tablet stopped everything. 

Felicity froze. Nick noticed, and he said her name as his fingers brushed her arm, but she barely felt it. Because the code flashed again, and this time she attacked the screen, backtracking, trying to find it again. It looked familiar, like something she had coded, but she suddenly knew it didn’t belong in her tablet’s OS.

_There._

She tagged it and pulled up its pathway, tracing it back to…

The servers at the foundry. 

“I have to go,” Felicity blurted. She shoved up out of her chair, snatching up her jacket and purse. 

Nick watched her in surprise. She offered him an apologetic grimace and opened her mouth to explain, but what would she say, exactly? _Hey, I work for the Arrow, and I do a lot of that work on this tablet, and I’m pretty sure someone got a trojan in on me without my knowing, and if that isn’t bad enough, it’s been trying to hack the servers at our lair. I’ll talk to you later?_

Smooth. 

Felicity guzzled the rest of her coffee instead and with a harried, “Thanks for the talk, Nick,” she rushed out to her car. 

The night was colder than usual from the day’s storm, but she barely felt it through her t-shirt.

Dumping everything in her passenger seat, she took off for the foundry.

“Stupid,” she breathed, shaking her head. “I’m so stupid.”

Now she could see the pattern. Every time she tried to access the foundry, her tablet fritzed. Because of her firewalls. Twice what she had done at Queen Consolidated, they were the only reason whoever had hacked her tablet hadn’t gotten into the foundry servers.

Someone had _hacked her._

“ _Stupid_. Stupid, stupid-”

Verdant was open, which made maneuvering into the makeshift garage Oliver had fashioned more time-consuming than she would have liked. But all too soon she was grabbing her tablet and darting to the back door.

Code in, door open, she marched right in and went to her computers.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, tablet hooked up, code running across her screen, her fingers flying over the keyboards to find the source of the code before she realized how quiet it was around her.

It was nearly ten o’clock on a Wednesday night at the foundry.

And she was alone.

That hit her like a sledgehammer. Felicity spun in her chair to look at the empty room, as if Oliver and Diggle might appear on the mats where they usually were. But there was nothing save for the pounding music upstairs and the hiss of steam. 

Did something happen? Guilt reared its ugly head. If something was happening and she hadn’t been here to help… 

When she activated their GPS units, nothing came up, so she pinged their phones.

There. They were together in the northeast quadrant of the Glades, close to the foundry. They were okay. They just weren’t here.

_He doesn’t need me._

The walls holding in her emotions cracked, and she blindly spun to grab her tablet. She didn’t need to be here to do this. She could be at her apartment with her laptop, figuring out where the code came from. In the safety of her home, where there was wine, and mint chip ice cream, and bathtubs, and Doctor Who marathons. 

“Yeah,” she whispered, unplugging her tablet. “That’s much better. That’s-”

A loud slam shattered the quiet.

Felicity jumped with a shout, spinning to face where the door to the alley hid. It crashed open, the large, sliding metal door hitting the wall with a stunning clap of sound that had her jumping again before it slid shut just as quickly.

Someone was in the foundry.

A bolt of terror had her scrambling for something to defend herself with, but then she heard the familiar footsteps on the stairs, a cadence she knew by heart.

Before she could so much as blink, Oliver appeared. He still wore the same suit from today, but now it was wrinkled, the tie gone, his hair skewed as if he’d spent hours running his hands through it. Rust stains smeared the collar of his white dress shirt.

He stopped when he saw her.

“Oliver, what…?”

The question died when she registered the look on his face. Anger bled into every crack and crevice, and it was all directed at her. His eyes burned with emotion she couldn’t name, and the intensity of it had her stomach pitching, a cold sweat breaking out.

Self-preservation kicked in and she spun back to her desk.

“I was just leaving,” she said, a tremor in her voice. She tried to clamp it down. “No need to berate me for being here, I’m going home, and I’ll work on my tablet there. I’ll be out of your hair in a minute, I just need to-”

Oliver spun her around.

She hadn’t even heard him _move_. 

Her chest collapsed in on itself as she scrambled to react, to think, to do something, but when she looked up at him, her mind blanked. 

Face hollowed out, the circles under his eyes deep and aching, agitation and exhaustion amplified the frenzied air around him. His eyes were pitch dark, the blue eclipsed in a panicked midnight as they ran over her with wild desperation, his hands ghosting over her shoulders and arms in uneven jerks. 

“Are you okay?” he rasped. “Are you hurt?”

“What? No, I’m fine-”

“God, Felicity,” he breathed before cupping her face and pressing his forehead to hers.

She was too shocked to do anything. He crowded her against him, overwhelming her senses. A hard, calloused hand on one cheek, something smooth, but bulky against her other. His skin was clammy and something coppery filled her nose with the specific musk that was sweat and something all Oliver. A tremble danced over every inch of him, translating into her as his thumbs scraped over her cheeks, his breaths harsh against her lips.

The need to soothe him took over everything.

Felicity’s hands scrambled up his chest. His muscles were rock hard and searing hot through his shirt, and she instinctively pressed her hand over his heart.

It was _racing_.

“I couldn’t find you,” he said in an agonized whisper, his fingers tightening. “You weren’t picking up your phone or answering your texts. Your apartment was empty, and you weren’t at the office or that coffee shop. I tried pinging your phone, but you shut it off and I couldn’t-”

His voice broke off.

Oliver abruptly let her go and stepped back. He glared at her, chest rising and falling with rapid breaths, eyes narrowed, his jawline so sharp it could cut glass. Then he came back at her, as if he had to, a compulsion he couldn’t fight. She jumped as he invaded her space again, emotion running rampant over his face, going from fear to relief to shock and back to anger so fast she couldn’t keep up.

“I couldn’t _find you_ ,” he gritted out.

Felicity shook her head. “I don’t-”

“I didn’t know where you were,” he snapped, towering over her. She had to fight to stay in place. “And you weren’t answering your phone-”

“I didn’t get any calls.” She slapped her back pocket. Her phone wasn’t there. A flash of panic that she might have left it at the coffee shop hit her before remembering all her stuff was still in her car. “It’s upstairs. I-I silenced it, and I shut off the app because you wouldn’t stop pinging my phone earlier. I stopped at the coffee shop for what was supposed to a couple minutes, but it turned into a couple hours, mostly because I didn’t want to be here-”

“I don’t care what’s going on between us, Felicity,” he interrupted, “you _always_ keep it on you. _Always_.”

She frowned. “It’s not like you’ve given me a lot of reason to do that.”

“I don’t care. You always keep it on you, and you keep it on. You could’ve… God, if something _happened_ , if they-”

The words tumbled out in a mess that got lost as he suddenly scrubbed his face so hard she heard his stubble scraping his calluses - of one hand. He had his tie wrapped around his left one. Oliver shoved his hands into his hair, leaving a mess in his wake, and this close she could see how much he was shaking.

“What?” Felicity prompted. “What is going on?”

He fell completely still. 

A chill fell down her spine as the air in the room shifted, almost like the molecules themselves were adjusting to the sudden presence of something that hadn’t been there before. Something dark, something menacing, something that swiftly made her fight-or-flight instincts kick in. She shuddered as he zeroed in on her with a force she felt in her bones.

“They know.”

“What?”

“The Bratva,” Oliver said, voice ice cold, even as anger thickened it. “They know you’ve been looking into their business. They _know_ , Felicity. They know what you’ve been doing.”

“That’s not possible-”

“Not possible?” he repeated on a pained laugh that struck her like a battering ram. 

“I couldn’t get into their network,” Felicity explained. “Everything I found is public information. And I kept it specific to Camille, to the old club until I found the connection to the new one. But none of that matters, because it’s all public. There’s nothing linking back to me! There’s no way they could know-”

He nailed her in place with a glare. “And when you went to the club this morning?”

“Who do you think designed that scrambler you’ve been using so much?” Felicity retorted, glaring right back at him. “I’m not stupid, Oliver, I know what I’m doing-”

“Obviously not,” he snapped, turning away again.

“Oh, like you know?”

He spun faster than she could see and closed the distance between them. Felicity gasped as he advanced on her, and she instinctively fell back. He had never scared her, not once, not even as the Arrow. She knew with every fiber of her being that she was safe with him. But there was something else in his face right now, the same thing he’d walked in with, something that had the hair on the back of her neck rising and adrenaline shooting through her.

She ran into her desk, hitting it so hard it scraped against the floor.

“You know what I know?” he demanded, crowding her against the desk. He pulled a wrinkled paper out of his pocket and slammed it next to her keyboard. The thud reverberated through the foundry. “I know that I told you to stop, and you _didn’t_.”

The last word shot through the room like a bullet.

“And now they know about you,” Oliver said in a growl that bared his teeth. “They know-”

“Damn it, Oliver.” A large hand landed on Oliver’s shoulder and yanked him back. Diggle stepped between them, his wide back hiding Oliver from her sight completely. Oliver moved to come at her again, but Diggle shoved him back. “That’s enough!”

“She doesn’t get it,” Oliver snapped.

“Maybe if you tried explaining it instead of attacking her,” Diggle retorted. “Jesus, man, back off. _Now_.” 

The command shocked her into silence. John in full-out soldier mode quickly climbed her list of terrifying things to see in action, and the resultant tension clogging the air made it worse. A beat of silence followed as the two men stared at each other before Oliver finally stalked away.

When Diggle turned to her, his face gentled. But it didn’t take away from his own imposing force. 

“Oliver met with the Starling City chapter of the Bratva tonight,” he told her.

“He… what? The Bratva? They’re here? They’ve _been_ here?” She pushed around Diggle just enough to see Oliver. “You didn’t think that was an important thing to mention?”

Oliver reared back, ready to tear into her, but Diggle stepped between them again.

“That’s not the important part,” Diggle said. 

“There’s a more important part?” Felicity asked. She pushed around him to look at Oliver again. “You knew about this? Are they involved in that club? Do they know what happened to Camille? Did they do something to her-”

“Felicity, slow down.” Diggle grabbed her arms and leaned down so she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “We went there to get more information and to see if the Bratva are involved, and they are.” She sputtered, but Diggle talked over her. “But the way they work is favor for a favor, like a quid pro quo. To get the information we need, Oliver has to do something first.”

“Then do it,” Felicity said. “If this can find Camille-”

“You’re the quid pro quo, Felicity.”

Buzzing filled her ears. “What?”

“They want you.”

“What… what does that mean-”

Oliver shoved Diggle aside. “It means they know you were there-”

“Oh my god, stop!” Felicity slashed her hand through the air. “First of all, that is pretty much impossible because nobody was there! I’ve worked with you long enough to not be stupid about cameras, and you can’t hack something if you can’t get to it, Oliver! I didn’t even get inside the building. It’s impossible for them to find me snooping in something that I wasn’t even in, in the first place!”

His glare cut through her as he opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off again.

“And second, you don’t get to come in here and throw around accusations, because we could have avoided all of this if you had just talked to me, like a normal person!”

Diggle closed his eyes as Oliver flinched as if she’d slapped him. 

The urge to apologize was on the tip of her tongue, but she was also _right_.

Oliver said nothing. His face went carefully blank, but he couldn’t hide the crashing storm of emotion in his eyes. It couldn’t stay contained. The facade quickly cracked and fury rolled over him as he clenched his jaw, the muscle there jumping. Without a word, he turned toward the case holding his suit, wrenched the door open, and ripped his suit off the mannequin. One arm snapped off, and he threw it back inside the case with barely controlled violence.

Suit in-hand, Oliver stalked off without a glance in their direction.

Felicity wound her arms around her middle and hunched against the turmoil whipping into a fervor inside her.

“Hey.” Diggle touched her elbow. “You okay?”

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “No, I’m not okay. He’s… Something’s wrong, and I don’t know what it is, or what to do. I was baiting a freaking serial killer a couple weeks ago, but suddenly this is the worst thing I’ve ever done? Something’s different, and I don’t know what-”

Yes, she did.

Felicity grimaced, and then she had to bite back a hysterical giggle. 

Who knew a kiss could be so detrimental.

“He’s not thinking straight right now,” Diggle told her.

“You think?” Her voice bounced off the walls and Diggle raised an eyebrow. Felicity deflated. “Sorry, I’m not snapping at you. Except I am. I’m sorry, I’m just…”

“It’s okay.” Diggle offered her a small smile as he touched her shoulder. She practically collapsed into the touch, the tiny gesture bringing burning tears to her eyes. Felicity pinched her lips together and ducked her head, hating how much it hurt. How much _he_ was hurting her. “You have more than enough reason. So does he, even if his way of showing it sucks.”

She tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace.

“Hey, at least you’re not breaking doors.”

“What?”

Exasperation colored Digg’s face. “He broke the damn door in the back on his way in here. I had to go through Verdant.”

“That’s… a big door,” was all she could think to say, remembering the crash from earlier, the fierce look on his face when he’d walked in. She shuddered and closed her eyes against another surge of tears. “What happened? I mean, he was upset earlier, but he wasn’t… _this_. I know I probably didn’t handle all this very well, but the way he’s acting, I can’t… It’s…” 

“This happened,” Diggle said, and picked up the blood-smeared, crumpled paper Oliver had slammed down on her desk.

It was a photo of her going into Queen Consolidated, obviously taken with a telephoto lens. 

The floor dropped out from under her. She took it from him with a shaking hand, her heart pounding, blood rushing through her ears. The world turned fuzzy, becoming out-of-focus, fading away as she stared at herself in her red coat, her hair up, the umbrella, her phone, her… 

_Her_.

Someone had taken a picture of her, someone had followed her, and she’d had no idea.

“They know you work for him,” Diggle said, “and that he has easy access to you.”

It was an eternity before all she whispered was, “Oh.”

The Russian mob wanted her.

That was a sentence she never imagined herself thinking. Ever. 

She tried to take a breath, but her throat closed up. Terror burst inside her a second later when all the horrible things she’d found about the Bratva popped up into her head. Forced prostitution. Slave rings. Auctions. Brands seared into flesh. Felicity stared at the picture, but all she saw were the crime scene photos linked to sales associated with the Bratva. The woman whipped to death. The one who drowned in her own blood from the spiked collar digging into her neck. The woman left to die in a dumpster after a brutal assault by multiple people.

And they wanted Oliver to deliver her to them.

White hot pressure filled her chest, choking her.

“Felicity…”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“We’re going to figure it out-”

“No, it can’t… I don’t _understand_. Why me? This isn’t about the club. It can’t be. It was just last night that I found that connection to them. I didn’t do anything, not for them to…” Felicity shook the picture. “This can’t be about the club. It was a simple search, I-I did a simple search on public information, and I know I went there, but I was careful. I was _careful_. This doesn’t make sense, why… What do they want with me, what are they going to do-”

“Hey.” Diggle took the picture and set it back on her desk, facedown, before he leaned down to catch her eye again. “We’re going to figure this out, okay? We won’t let anything happen to you.”

Felicity tried to nod, but the pressure only grew until she couldn’t breathe. She pressed her hand to her chest, panicking more when she felt her erratic heartbeat. It pounded wildly against her palm, but it suddenly felt like someone else’s heart, somebody else’s palm, like all this was happening to someone else.

It already had happened to someone else, though.

And now they wanted it to happen to her.

The floor fell out from under her, but then heavy footfalls sounded and she looked up as Oliver appeared.

It wasn’t just him. He was the Arrow, hood up, his face shrouded in darkness.

That didn’t stop Felicity from moving. She didn’t even realize what she was doing. All she knew in that split second was that she didn’t feel safe, and regardless of what was happening, she knew he would make her feel that.

But he breezed past her without a second glance.

Hurt and disbelief carved through her. She turned to watch him go, wrapping her arms around herself again as he grabbed his bow and quiver. He set them on a metal rollaway table long enough to shove his hands into his gloves before he strapped his equipment on. Every move was quick, efficient, and mechanical. Not once did he look her way, nor did he notice the tear slipping down her cheek that she quickly wiped away, or the quiver of her lower lip as he shut her out so effectively.

The only time he paused was to look at Diggle.

“Take her to the Manor.”

Felicity blanched. “What?”

“You’re going to the Manor,” he told her. “And you’re staying there.”

“I’m not going home with you. I mean-” She recoiled, but it was more in anger than anything. It felt good. It burned through the fear and she leaned into it. Meeting his glare head-on, Felicity advanced on him. “I am not going to your house.”

“It’s not up for discussion,” he said, his voice darker than anything she’d ever heard from him, even from his modulator.

Oliver turned away, but she grabbed his arm to stop him.

“Actually it is,” Felicity argued. He stiffened, glaring at her hand and then her. She knew he could remove her hold if he wanted to, but he didn’t. It emboldened her, and she dug her nails in until he was grinding his teeth. _Good_. She wanted him to hurt like he was hurting her. “I am not doing something as ridiculous as going to your house. I’m not some pawn you can move around at your whim-”

“I am trying to keep you safe,” he growled.

“By taking away my choice?”

“That is not what I’m doing-”

Felicity snorted, and she swore she felt the tension in his body rise.

“You can’t go home,” Oliver said, grated and harsh. “It’s not safe there, we already know people are watching it, which leaves-”

“About a thousand other options that aren’t your house,” she finished in a heated rush. His anger rose alongside hers, his chest puffing out, his nostrils flaring, but she didn’t back down. “God, Oliver, I don’t want to go back to my apartment! That someone is watching it? That they have been? That is terrifying. I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe there again. But your house is not the solution. I would rather go to a hotel room than-”

“You are not going to a hotel room.”

“Oh, but your assistant shacking up with you for a few days is a great idea, is it? There’s already enough people talking about how I spend my time as your EA, and it’s not filing or maintaining your schedule.”

“Your safety is more important than rumors,” Oliver snapped. “I don’t care-”

“Well, I do.” Felicity shoved his chest. “I care!”

“I don’t!” Oliver roared. Adrenaline shot through her and her breath caught as he got in her face again. But this time she didn’t fall back, too upset, too livid, to let him intimidate her. “Your safety comes before everything, Felicity. _Everything_. I don’t give two shits what people say about us as long as it means you’re safe. And I can’t keep you safe if you’re not with me, especially if you’re in a fucking hotel room!”

“So stowing me away in your giant castle is better?”

“That’s not what I’m doing-”

“That is exactly what you’re doing-”

“No, Felicity, stop! Just stop. Until this is taken care of, I’m not letting you out of my sight. End of story.”

“So where are you going right now?” Felicity waved at his Arrow suit. At the bow she swore shook with how hard he was clenching it. “You need to separate yourself from me as much as possible that you suit up to creep in the shadows-”

“No,” he snarled through clenched teeth. “I’m going to the club.”

“So, you’re leaving me here, without you?”

“Yes-”

“I’ll stay here then.”

“What? Absolutely not. It’s freezing in here. There’s no insulation, no heat-”

“Yeah, it’s basically one giant dumb drafty room! But I prefer that to your house-”

“Goddamn it, Felicity!” Oliver spun away and threw his bow at the metal table. It landed with a violent clang before sliding off the other side. He didn’t care, already turning back to her before it could hit the ground. “Why are you being so cavalier about this? I need you to care at least a tiny bit about your safety. This isn’t a joke.”

She laughed. It was an empty sound, completely void of everything but desolate humor.

“You think I don’t know that?” she asked. “I am not okay right now. At all. On top of finding out the Russian mob is after me, you are freezing me out, _completely_ , and that was after we…” 

God, even thinking about the kiss had her entire chest collapsing. If he saw it, if he knew what she was talking about, he didn’t show it, remaining a block of ice. It only fueled the words spilling out of her. 

“I realize you think I’m downplaying this, Oliver, but that’s because I am compartmentalizing. Because I have to. Because I am a sane person who cannot handle that Russian gangsters asked my boss to kidnap me. I am not calm about any of this, in any way, shape, or form. But I’m also not going to let it control me. I _can’t_.” 

He didn’t budge. She wanted him to. She _needed_ him to. But he did nothing.

All the anger swept out of her in a rush as her shoulders fell.

“This is the safest place in the city. It’s secure, and it has a bed. What more do I need? I’m always here, anyway, and at least here… Here, I feel safe. It’s dumb to go to your house, and even if it wasn’t, the Russian mob is apparently after me, so asking you or Diggle to take that on is out of the question. So unless you want to carry me kicking and screaming out of here, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Tension radiated off him in waves.

For a split second, Felicity thought he might do just that. He was livid, so far out of reach, that she absolutely saw him picking her up and heading straight for the exit. It wouldn’t matter how much she kicked or hit him, he would toss her into the Mercedes, her angry screams and all.

Felicity squared her jaw. “Don’t even _think_ about it.”

With an agitated huff, Oliver turned away. He bowed his head, walking as far as the room would allow, his hand disappearing under his hood, probably to dig into his brow.

A breathy curse echoed from him before he turned back around.

“Fine,” Oliver grated out. “But you’re not staying here alone.”

She knew what he was getting at, but the words came out, anyway. “Diggle can stay.”

“Oh?” Diggle offered, but neither of them acknowledged it.

Oliver’s eyes nailed her in place. “Would you stop making this so goddamn difficult?”

“Sure, when you remove your head from your ass.”

The surrounding air darkened, and that fight-or-flight instinct kicked in again as he advanced on her with a low, “Excuse me?”

“Why would I want you here, Oliver?” Felicity asked. “All you’ve done is treat me like a piece of furniture you move around at your whim. You clearly don’t care what I think or how I feel about what’s happening. Does my word count for nothing anymore? Did it ever? Or have you just forgotten that this is my life, my choice? I get that something very bad is happening right now, but that doesn’t mean you get to sweep in like I’m some damsel in distress who doesn’t get a vote at all. I thought you trusted me at least enough to talk to me, after everything we’ve been through-”

“I do trust you,” Oliver said abruptly, and she almost believed him. “That’s not even a question, Felicity. I’ve always trusted you. But that’s not the point.”

“Yes, it is. If you trust me, then talk to me. Tell me what this is, tell me why you’re acting like this. Please.”

Despite the hood, she still caught the glimmer of his eyes against the smears of grease paint. The storm raged in them, light and dark, crashing waves and lightning, colliding in vicious squalls that were equal part ice and molten blue. 

He said nothing, and that said enough.

Felicity stepped back, winding her arms around her middle again. 

“You know what, do whatever you want, Oliver. Stay, don’t stay, I don’t care.”

The quiet that followed threatened to crush her to dust. He stared at her, unfathomable and so unbelievably far away that she wondered if there had ever been a time when she thought they had been close. That was gone now, So fast, so sudden, the removal damn near surgical despite how much it hurt being torn away from her. 

It hurt more that he was so unaffected by it.

Oliver turned away, and it was like a cleaver scooping out her heart.

“She doesn’t leave,” he said to Diggle.

Felicity didn’t have it in her to fight anymore.

All she did was watch him pick up his bow, and he left.

Diggle’s hand brushed her shoulder. She bit her lips together as hard as she could to keep more tears from falling. 

“Felicity,” he started.

“I need my stuff,” she croaked. “From my apartment. I don’t… I don’t have anything here.”

She really didn’t, she realized. This place had become a second home to her, but there was nothing else of her here. 

Only _him_ … 

The door at the top of the stairs leading to Verdant slid shut so hard she jumped.

“I can get some stuff for you,” Diggle said gently. “What do you need?”

So much more than he could give her. No, there was only one person for that, and he’d just walked out.

It was just her.

“Well,” Felicity finally said with an unsteady breath and an even worse smile. “Clothes would be a good start…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who else wants to punch Oliver right in the nose? (Edit: You're right, they both need a good punch to knock some sense into them.)
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
>  **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


	6. Wednesday 2 a.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, the reaction to the last chapter was fabulous. Some of you are Team Felicity, some are Team Oliver, and a few are Team Diggle. Some were Team What-The-Fuck-Is-This and some were Team Give-Me-More-Now. I love it so much! I really threw a bunch of story spaghetti at the wall and went with what stuck for me. I'm so enjoying your reaction to it so far. There's a lot of stop and go in the evolution of their relationship in this story, so buckle in for more fun. Ha - "fun." But it is worth it! I promise! 
> 
> I'm having to do revisions earlier than anticipated with some of the later chapters - it's good! Because the things I've learned from these chapters and from the ending are making it richer and more intense, but that also means I'm going to be bamboozling Jess with a lot more 'read this help,' so thank you to her again for working through this fic with me.
> 
> Check out the [soundtrack](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3YpqWamLZgLJg5cqnSEpyg) for this fic if you haven't already, I matched the songs to the beats of the story. And it's moody as hell, with some softness thrown in on top.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this update!

  
(90 hours before the gala)

_… you insist the weight of the world, should be on your shoulders…_

Oliver pulled into the alley behind Verdant.  


Cold, damp air chilled him through his leathers. Soiled garbage and wet rust lingered after the day’s storms, mixing with engine oil from the trucks that used the alleyway. The roar of his bike bounced off the walls, screaming loud in the dead silence of the night as he whipped into the garage and parked next to Felicity’s Mini Cooper.

She was still there.

It wasn’t relief he felt. Or happiness, or reassurance, or gratitude.

He was numb. 

Oliver shut the bike off. 

As the engine cooled with slow ticks, he didn’t move. He stayed hunched over, his head bowed, his helmet heavy. The stiff, sweat-dried lines of his suit cracked when he breathed. His muscles bunched in painful knots that seemed to grow tighter with every passing second. 

Ever since he left earlier, all he’d wanted was to get back. The need to keep his eyes glued to her had been so overwhelming he’d choked on it. 

But now that he was here, he couldn’t bring himself to go in.

Memories stirred, things long buried pushing back to the surface, and what he’d discovered…

He sucked in a shuddering breath and yanked his helmet off.

_Hidden rooms, tunnels, the preparation, the tools._

Oliver took another breath, but it barely squeezed past his throat.

She had stumbled onto something huge, something far bigger than he thought possible without him even noticing. And instead of stopping it, he was losing ground, fast. Too fast.

And she was right in the middle of it.

“Goddamn it,” Oliver breathed.

Ice scraped down his spine, and he hunched forward, digging his fingers into his brow. How had he let this happen? How had he not seen it coming? He’d been so caught up in his own bullshit that he missed all the signs, and now Felicity was paying the price for it - for just doing what he had asked her to do when she first came on. Diggle had warned him, but Oliver said they would protect her. That _he_ would protect her. But he wasn’t. He was doing the exact opposite, and now she was in the crosshairs of the most dangerous people he knew on the planet. 

Oliver hit the handlebar. “Damn it!”

He saw her empty apartment as he’d found it earlier - the open laptop on her couch, a half-filled cup of coffee on the side table, the lights on as if she were just in the other room. But she hadn’t been. She’d been gone-

_She’s just inside._

Oliver vaulted off his bike. He ghosted through the nightclub, punched in the code, slid the door open. He knew the definition of eternity. He knew what it was like when a minute became an hour, a day, a week. But when he couldn’t find her? When all he could think about was her being stolen away to somewhere he couldn’t follow? 

It had been the longest sixty minutes of his life.

He had to see her.

She was probably asleep, hopefully on his cot where there was at least a blanket. He just needed to see her for one minute. To be near her. To know she was safe and sound, breathing, _alive_ -

At her desk.

Relief warred with trepidation as Oliver stopped halfway down the stairs. 

Her shoulders stiffened and her head canted to the side, just enough to let him know she was aware of his presence. But she didn’t look at him. Diggle sat at a nearby table, putting a gun he’d been cleaning back together. But Oliver only had eyes for her. She was a vision. She always was. Hair up in a neat ponytail, jeans replaced with yoga pants she used for the random training sessions with Digg, the same light blue t-shirt. Boots off to the side, revealing matching striped socks. Despite what had happened, despite nothing being okay between them right now, there was still something comforting about walking into her like this.

Something that felt like coming home.

Eyes never leaving her, he took the rest of the stairs down. But he couldn’t bring himself to close the distance between them. He stopped at the base instead. He had stormed out of here in such a righteous fury. But it had faded, and now all he had left was a hollow crater he didn’t know how to fill.

Her shoulders shook with what looked like a shiver, and he frowned.

“Hey.” Diggle appeared next to him, jacket-in-hand. “You okay?”

Oliver honestly didn’t know how to respond. 

Forcing his eyes away from Felicity, he just glanced at his friend. Diggle’s lips tightened, but he nodded.

He followed Oliver’s gaze when it found Felicity again.

“You two going to be alright tonight?” Diggle asked, his voice pitched low. It was another question he didn’t have an answer to. But whatever Diggle saw when he glanced at Oliver must have been enough, because he clapped him on the shoulder and raised his voice for Felicity to hear. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Felicity, I’ll bring your stuff from your apartment.”

She turned to look at Diggle and gave him a small smile. 

Her gaze settled on Oliver for a split second, her face carefully guarded, and then she was turning back to her screens.

The absence of her voice was an ice pick to his chest.

“Take it easy on her,” Diggle said to him. Oliver had the decency to bow his head. Digg patted him on the shoulder with a quiet, “Yeah. ‘Night.” 

Oliver was vaguely aware of reciprocating, of the rattle of the stairs under Diggle’s tread, the door sliding open and clicking shut, the alarm re-engaging. 

Then silence bore down on the room, a physical, crushing presence.

Without a word, Oliver pulled out the tech he’d taken from her earlier and moved to set it by her keyboard.

Felicity looked at it, her brow furrowing before she looked up at him.

She looked how he felt. Worn and drawn, lines crowding her forehead, her eyes sunken in with exhaustion and anger and more than a little fear. Shame stabbed him and he bit his tongue. He’d handled earlier like shit, and he wasn’t handling it any better now. Especially because he needed the information from the servers, the very ones she’d tried to get to earlier. It was a fuck-awful olive branch, and he knew it. But it was all he had.

He would fix this. Fix them. He just had to get rid of the Bratva first. 

“I cloned the servers at the Red Room,” Oliver said. Felicity didn’t move, didn’t speak. He couldn’t bring himself to walk away. “I waited for the light to turn green. I assume that meant it had finished.”

It took a beat, but she finally nodded.

And that was it.

The need to hear her voice became desperate. “It can be used multiple times, right?”

He stared at her, waiting, but all she did was nod again. He opened his mouth. But to say what? 

Oliver turned to put his bow away. 

“Why?”

He froze, closing his eyes, letting the simple word wash over him. He looked back to see she’d turned her chair to face him.

“Because there are more clubs,” he replied. The instant the words were out, he wished he could snatch them back. But he kept going. “And there might be more coming. There’s the Red Room, and two more - Bar Rouge and Nightflight. They had barely anything on the premises, at any of them, but all three had sophisticated systems that were password protected.” Oliver stared at her. “You were right. I was hoping there would be something on their servers that could give us some more info. And maybe information about your friend.”

His second attempt at an olive branch sat between them.

She left it there, dropping her gaze to the tech.

Her dismissal was a red hot poker to the gut. But he had earned it twenty times over, hadn’t he? He didn’t deserve her forgiveness. 

That didn’t stop him from wanting it. Craving it. Needing it.

Swallowing hard, the feeling burning his insides to ash, Oliver turned to the empty mannequin. He grabbed a towel and wiped the grease paint off his face before pulling his quiver off and tugging the zipper of his jacket down. In his haste he’d forgone a compression shirt, and he had to peel the stiff leather off his still-sweaty skin. A shiver sliced through him as the cold foundry air touched his bare chest.

He hurt, in the way only utter exhaustion could. He leaned into it, concentrating on the ache.

Gloves next, he yanked his right one off, was more careful with the left. The leather had sunken into the deep lacerations from earlier.

“I’m wearing my lace skirt.”

Oliver’s heart soared once more at her voice, soft and reserved as it was. He soaked it in before turning to her. “What?”

Felicity held out the photo Alexi had given him. 

Any goodness he’d been feeling evaporated at the sight of the crinkled picture. Dried blood still smeared the image, some of it crossing over her face. Fighting the urge to rip it away from her, Oliver forced his eyes back to hers.

“I’m wearing my lace skirt.” Felicity shook the picture. “That is a vintage lace skirt that I got in a hole in the wall shop in Boston, and I always know exactly when I wear it because it’s so fragile. I wore it last Monday. Not two-days-ago Monday. Last-week Monday.”

The realization hit him like a Mack truck.

“More than a week ago,” she reiterated. “You said the Bratva wanted me for the searches I was doing into their new club, but that can’t be because I just started that. And even then, the Bratva connection itself didn’t click until last night. They weren’t even on my radar. There’s no way this could be about me-”

“Then what is it?” 

The words came out whip-fast and hard as steel, making her jump. 

Oliver tried to temper the ice that crowded his voice, but it was impossible as the anger he thought he’d left behind snapped back to life. 

“You told me you looked into the club before,” he said, advancing on her. With no heels on, he engulfed her. Her eyes flared, and the bit of defiance pissed him off. “You told me you had it flagged, which is how you knew another one was opening. Whatever you did could have alerted them _weeks_ ago-”

“That’s not how it works-”

“You’re telling me there’s no connection between this picture and your searching?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you!” She threw her hands up. “God, Oliver, for all we know this could be some random creep who saw me when we were in Russia. You don’t think _that_ timing isn’t a little weird? To know I was looking for anything, they would have to know exactly what I was looking for, and the exact algorithms I used. The odds of that are less than zero. But what does make sense is that we were in Russia, and now suddenly the Russian mob is interested in me? What else could possibly bring them to my doorstep, but… But you. _You_ could.”

The words hit him like a gut punch and he stumbled back.

It hadn’t even occurred to him. He hadn’t let it occur to him, because it would mean everything he’d worked for was for nothing. All the work he’d done to separate himself from his past, from the Bratva, from the darkness he wanted to leave behind, that he had left behind…

But he hadn’t, had he?

It was still here, and now it was going after the people closest to him. 

He had done this to her.

Oliver spun away from her, but the floor tilted, making it harder to get away.

Felicity grabbed his arm. “If this is about the Arrow-”

Oliver whirled to face her. “The Arrow?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. What if they found something linking me to the Arrow? What if they’re trying to find out who you are? They would definitely be interested in stopping the guy who would make their lives a living hell-”

“This isn’t about the Arrow.”

“How do you know? Did they tell you that? Because that could be exactly-”

“It’s not about the Arrow!” 

She jerked back, her eyes widening. 

Hissing through his teeth, Oliver spun away, his mind racing. There was so much she didn’t know, and he needed to keep it that way. The thought of telling her any of it, of showing her the darkest parts of himself, the worst parts… 

_… vacant eyes, rusted shackles, skin so damaged it had torn to the bone, the bitter voice in his ear, “Are you proud of yourself?”…_

He couldn’t.

“It’s not about the Arrow,” he repeated.

Felicity stared at him. “How do you know that, Oliver?”

“I just do. Okay. I just do, so just… trust me-”

“Trust you?” She huffed out a brittle laugh. “I want to. I really do. It’d be so much easier. But last time I checked, that’s a two-way street. And right now? I’m the only one on it.”

Shaking her head, she walked back to her desk.

Oliver stared at her, rubbing his thumb against his index finger, his feet itching to move to her.

But he didn’t.

She stood barely half a dozen feet away from him, but the distance felt like miles. 

Words lingered on his tongue, so many that he knew if he started, he wouldn’t stop. But they stalled. _He_ stalled. He could say something, anything, but the second he opened his mouth, a vicious pressure clamped down on his chest and squeezed. He knew if she ever learned about the person he really was, the things he had done, how much red stained his hands… 

_He couldn’t._

A shiver wracked her frame. She rubbed her arms, bowing her head, her shoulders hunching in.

He looked around for her jacket, but saw his sweatshirt instead. It was still where he’d left it this morning after his run in the rain. Dry now, he grabbed it and brought it to her.

“You’re cold.”

“You can take it,” Felicity said.

“No,” Oliver said, holding the sweatshirt so she could see it. “I mean, you look cold.”

“Oh.” Felicity stared at the sweatshirt for a beat before looking back at him. “Thank you.” 

Her chilled fingers grazed his knuckles when she took it from him. She was so soft, dangerously, deliciously soft, and for an abrupt moment, he was back to the night before. When he’d felt more than her fingertips. When he’d learned what she tasted like and how soft other parts of her were, how those gentle curves felt pressed against him, her arms winding tight around him. His eyes dropped to her lips, to her breasts, and his palm tingled. He wanted to go back to before everything went wrong, to when the worst thing happening was giving into his feelings-

“What’s that?”

Oliver started. “What?”

He realized too late he had handed her the sweatshirt with his left hand.

Before he could yank it away, she grabbed his arm, tossing the sweatshirt onto her desk. He quickly made a tight fist, but that did nothing to erase the dried blood that’d leaked between his fingers and smudged his knuckles.

“Oh my god,” she breathed as he let her open his hand.

Red coated his palm, a gory mixture of new and old blood clumped together. It stained his skin, seeping into the creases of his calluses, dirt and sweat turning some of it black. The deep cuts from the metal table at Alexi’s laced the inside of his fingers, the edges flayed. Raw and agitated, he hadn’t given it a chance to clot, using it all night instead, his glove barely stopping the bleeding. 

“What happened?” Felicity asked, eyes flying to his.

“Nothing,” Oliver said. He tried to take his hand back. “It’s fine-”

“It’s not fine,” Felicity snapped. “Nothing about this is fine. How is this fine, Oliver? This is not-”

She abruptly cut off and closed her eyes. She took a stuttered breath, trying to steady herself, but it didn’t work as her lips started trembling, her face crumpling, even as she forced the air back out. 

It broke his heart.

“Felicity-”

“Go clean it,” she ordered. Her eyes snapped open, and she pointed to the bathroom she’d installed with the renovations. He was too startled to do anything but stare at her. Her eyes widened. “ _Now_.”

He did. He tried to close his fist again, but it hurt like hell this time, as if all he’d needed was her attention on it to remind him it was bad. It was easier, when it was just him, easier to bury the pain and pretend it wasn’t there until it faded. But even in the shadows, his fingers looked like ground meat. It was worse when he turned on the light in the bathroom, and it hurt more than he could stand when he put it under the water in the sink.

“Fuck,” he hissed.

Clumps of dried blood sloughed off, and the water ran red as fresh blood rushed to the surface.

Gritting his teeth, he cleaned the skin around the cuts. Soap leaked into the wounds, sending stinging pain shooting up his arm. He gritted his teeth and kept scrubbing, shoving the hurt so far down that his eye merely twitched when he ripped off pieces of thrashed skin. 

It was fine until Felicity appeared behind him.

Then his goddamn hand felt like it was on fire.

She dumped supplies on the small counter. Cotton balls and gauze and bandages and peroxide and wraps and a sewing kit. It all hit the cheap porcelain with thuds and clangs.

“Felicity-”

“Shut up,” she said, wrenching the water off. She grabbed a towel off the wall and pressed it into his hand. He flinched as blood instantly soaked into the white material.

She pursed her lips, like she was staving off tears.

“I’m okay,” he told her.

Ignoring him, she turned to the supplies she’d brought. Movements jerky, hands shaky, she ripped open packages and unscrewed bottles. Too many of them, more than they needed for something like this. That didn’t stop her. 

When she tugged the towel away, she couldn’t hide her gasp. Somehow the cuts looked worse, even he had to admit. She doused a cotton ball in peroxide and started cleaning them out. He hissed before clamping his jaw shut. It didn’t take long for the cotton to soak through with blood. She grabbed another one, repeated the process, once, twice, three times. 

“Yeah, this is real fine,” Felicity whispered, voice filled with tears. “Just fine.”

His gut twisted. “Felicity-”

She shook her head, a quick harsh motion that stopped him.

Oliver bit his tongue as she grabbed the sewing kit next. When she couldn’t hold it still, she threw it into the sink with a huff and grabbed a bunch of butterfly bandages. Sheer force of will kept him still as she pinched the wounds together. Then she grabbed fresh bandages and laid them across his fingers. Next was the gauze. She tried to wrap each finger lightly and evenly, but she shook so badly all she did was make a mess. She kept going, though, grabbing the tape next. She tore at the roll, but the strip ripped down the middle, making the roll twist. She cut it off with scissors and tried again. The same thing happened. 

“Stupid tape!” She tore at another piece, but it frayed down the side. “God, this stupid tape isn’t working! It’s supposed to work, why won’t it work, nothing is… _working_ , nothing…”

A sob wrenched out of her. 

Oliver’s heart shredded as she dropped the tape and covered her face. 

“Felicity…” 

Oliver pulled her into his arms and wrapped her up. He held her as tight as he could, too tight, but he couldn’t stop. He pressed his face to the top of her head, willing her pain to become his. It was his burden to carry, not hers. None of this should be happening. Not to her. He wanted all of it - her pain, her fear, her sadness, terror, confusion. He wanted to erase all of it, to eradicate everything that hurt her. Including him. Especially him. 

He should get her away from him now, and he knew it. Get her as far away from him as possible.

But that would mean letting her go, and he wasn’t about to do that. Not now. Not for anything. 

Oliver held her tighter, so tight she whimpered. Aching, he made himself let her go, especially when her hands landed on his chest to push him away-

She surged up onto her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck.

With a ragged gasp, Oliver hugged her back. He sagged into her arms, burying his face in the crook of her neck, breathing her in with a desperation that frightened him. But he couldn’t let her go. They clung to each other.

Her name was on his lips, so agonized, so heavy.

Needy.

He didn’t know who moved first.

All he knew was what he felt.

The brush of her fingers over his shoulder, her face turning into his, her lips brushing his pulse. She slowly fell back to her normal height, and the move dragged her breasts down his front. Need lit him up like a lightning bolt, and the air was suddenly too thick. Her back was so warm through her t-shirt, and when he flexed his fingers, he felt her bra through the thin material. They shifted, moving as one, until her light breaths danced over his lips. Her hands slid down his chest, grazing his nipples, his abs, to his waist. Lids heavy, she stared up at him, her cheeks flushing. Her breathing grew more ragged, hotter, damper, and his wasn’t any better, especially when her nails dug into his hips. He slid his right hand up to her face, cupping her jaw, dragging his thumb over her bottom lip.

So close. One taste. Just one more… 

Felicity ducked her head. 

Clarity was slow to take hold. All Oliver knew was that she didn’t pull away. He held onto her, pressing his face to the crown of her head, breathing her in. Without even thinking about it, he matched his breaths to hers. 

“You… you might have noticed I talk a lot,” Felicity finally whispered.

His lips twitched. “It has not escaped my attention.”

“You might have also noticed that I don’t talk a lot about my family.”

“I have noticed that,” Oliver replied quietly.

“My mother is… she’s… She’s my mother. And… I don’t really know what my father is, because he abandoned us. I barely remember him.” The pain in her voice carved a hole inside him, and he urged her to look up at him. She resisted, but just for a minute. Tears shined at him and agony knotted in his chest. “But I do remember,” Felicity continued, “how much it hurt when he left. And just the thought of losing someone that important to me again…”

“Hey. You’re not going to lose me,” he promised, and he believed it so readily that in that moment he would have done anything for her.

“Then stop shutting me out.” Her face broke, and a tear slipped free. “I don’t know what’s happening right now, Oliver. I know it’s big, and I know it scares you, and I get that, I do, because I’m scared too. But I can’t do this without you.”

Every word left razor-thin cuts.

She stared at him. “Talk to me. Please.”

Her plea almost ripped him open and spilled all the darkness. But what happened when it lingered? When it filled the room, the air, staining everything and leaving a thick, oily residue that would never scrub clean? He would never be free of it, and he shouldn’t be. It was his burden, and he should be the only one to carry. How could he ask her to take any of it, the person who shined her light on him so selflessly, who let him pretend that things could be okay? The person who made him want to believe he could be better?

How could he ask her to pay for the sins of his weakness, his selfishness?

He couldn’t.

Oliver saw the second she realized he wasn’t going to speak. 

Felicity’s eyes dulled, and the color in her face leached away. 

Panic struck him and he tightened his grip on her, but she slipped free, winding her arms around her middle. 

_Say something._

_Anything._

But nothing came out.

Hurt etched into her face, but the betrayal he saw there was worse. 

She left the bathroom.

The isolation seared him. It _burned_. It dug inside with acid-covered claws and bled him. But it wasn’t blood that seeped out. It was the acrid darkness he ran so hard from. It filled him until he was sure he was drowning. 

Oliver didn’t remember stripping off the rest of his clothes or starting the shower.

He scrubbed his skin raw, the scorching water turning it bright red. But no matter how hard he tried, the past was still there, underneath where the soap couldn’t reach. He still scoured every inch until his energy evaporated. He slouched against the wall, staring blindly at the shower floor. The bandages he didn’t remember falling off swirled around the drain with the red still oozing from the cuts. He looked at his hand, his fingers covered in fresh blood. It didn’t matter, did it, where it went, or how hard he wanted it to disappear. The lives lost because of him were all on his hands, blood that would never wash away.

The thought of Felicity’s adding to it… 

Oliver didn’t move until the water turned to ice, until his skin was so chafed he hissed. But the pain gave him something to concentrate on, broke through the torrent of his thoughts to level him out. He dried off and tugged on the spare sweats he kept in there. He’d destroyed all of Felicity’s work on his hand. Hating the sunken feeling in his chest, he quickly sewed up the worst parts, cinching the skin together and tearing the knots with his teeth before wrapping each finger.

The foundry was dead silent when he finally left the bathroom.

Unease needled him, and his feet took him to the cot before he could think twice. Logic told him she was fine, that nothing had happened, that the foundry was more secure than even the Manor. But had to see her, to know-

It was empty.

Terror nearly took him to his knees. 

It was the second time he expected to find her, and the second time he hadn’t. 

With a breathless, “Felicity?” he spun and darted to the main floor. His foot caught on a storage box from Verdant, his shoulder clipping a generator, but he didn’t feel any of it. His feet slapped the ground as he ran, all the images that’d tormented him shoving to the surface. He tried to think, but it was all too close, too fresh, too real-

_Screams. Broken glasses. Throat splitting open. Red. Lifeless eyes. Grey skin._

_There_ , slouched over on her desk. 

Relief damn near bowled him over, but it wasn’t enough.

She didn’t react when he jogged over to her. She didn’t move from where she pillowed her head on her arms, glasses askew, and she didn’t move when he touched her. But she was warm. Oliver let out a trembling breath, his shoulders sagging, and he fell into a crouch next to her. He cupped her cheek, pushing his fingers into her hair, then down her jaw, to her pulse point.

The steady pump of her heart greeted him.

God, he’d really thought… 

Oliver’s chest tightened, his throat closing, a rash of heat turning his skin into cellophane. But the past still burst through the layers he’d buried it under, ripping every seam, tearing and shredding. He struggled to shove it back down and away, but no matter what he did, it lingered. 

Her slow pulse anchored him. 

Keeping his hand nestled against her neck, Oliver counted the beats, and slowly the pressure eased.

This wasn’t Russia. It wasn’t Budapest. He was in Starling City.

With Felicity.

He opened his eyes to confirm that. Her cheeks were ruddy, her eyes puffy, circles that didn’t belong underlining them. 

She was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, so beautiful it hurt, so alive.

And wearing his sweatshirt.

The realization yanked him fully to the present as he took her in. 

Swaths of light grey positively drowned her. She had it wrapped around her as much as she could, her hands lost in the sleeves, the hood bunched up under her head. Her shapely legs were curled up under her, her body contorted to keep her stationary. Oliver let his hand drift up her jaw, to her cheek, into her hair. Her ponytail had loosened, leaving untamed strands to tickle her temple. He brushed them away before slowly removing her glasses. Her brows pinched together, and he quickly set them aside before cupping her cheek again with a soft, “Shh.”

She settled.

His thumb drifted over the corner of her mouth, and their kiss surfaced without permission or warning. Her lips had been so soft, so plump, fitting his perfectly, holding a taste he’d only dreamt about, but better. He would have kissed them again tonight-

The look she’d given him in the bathroom had him snatching his hand back and standing.

_Goddamn him._

He forced himself to look away from her. At her screens. They were all still on - one a news article about gang-related drug trafficking coming out of the Glades, another a journal article on cybernetics with a crude drawing of a robotic arm doing curls with a pencil, and the third… 

A web of red flowed in random rhythm, touching dozens and dozens of spots on the screen. It looked like it was collecting letters, numbers, and symbols, compiling phrases, creating a construct of language.

In Cyrillic. 

He only needed to see “Red Room” to know it was the data from the servers. He wanted to rip it all out. If he hadn’t already known about the clubs’ connection to the Bratva, the Cyrillic would have confirmed it. But past that, he’d seen her use programs like this before. She used it to break encryptions. Which meant they were hiding something.

It killed him that he needed her to find out what that was exactly.

A sigh pulled his attention back to the woman in question.

So soft.

So damn stubborn and willful.

It terrified the hell out of him, but it was also what made her _her_.

His Felicity.

Oliver rolled the chair towards him with a low, “C’mere.”

She didn’t make a peep where she slid across her desk or when he caught her under her arm and legs and picked her up. She was a slight, but solid weight in his arms, warm and perfectly fitted. His heart hummed at the sensation of her little puffs of air against his bare chest.

She stirred when he started walking.

“I’ve got you,” Oliver whispered.

“Hmm?” Her face twisted in confusion even as she curled further into him.

“I’m taking you to bed,” he told her. His pulse jumped as she cuddled against him with a muddled hum. “You fell asleep at your desk.”

“Oh. Okay. Bed good. So tired.” Felicity pressed her chilly nose to him. “Mm, you’re warm.”

“Are you cold?”

“No.” But she cuddled closer. Her open affection was such a turnaround that he nearly tripped. He didn’t have an excuse for why he leaned over and let his lips ghost over her hair. He just wanted to. She hummed as she nuzzled him. “But you were cold. I don’t like when you’re cold.”

Guilt sheared him. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” It almost felt like forgiveness. Almost. She sighed. “You’re growly.”

He couldn’t help a quiet chuckle. “Growly?”

“You have lots of growly voices,” Felicity told him in her sleepy stupor. “But I like this one. It’s my Oliver voice. Low and growly. Like a tiger. A warm, sleepy tiger.” 

Oliver’s lips curled up the more she talked. At that moment, they felt like _them_ again.

“I miss it,” she whispered.

The soft admission gutted him. He held her tighter as he murmured, “I’m sorry.”

She tapped his chest with a lazy finger. “Purring,” she breathed, and then she was out.

That made him smile again. He shook his head.

Only her.

If it took him longer than it should have to reach the cot, nobody was there to say anything. By the time he did, his smile was still in place. He laid her down as gently as he could and tugged the comforter over her. He tucked her in, making sure she was as warm as possible.

She stirred again. 

Brow twisting, her eyes blinked open to look up at him.

Oliver grabbed her hand and squeezed lightly. “Go to sleep, Felicity.”

Except there was no more sweet sleepiness as she looked at their hands with wariness. “Oliver?”

His smile disappeared. “Yeah. It’s just me.”

She tugged her hand back. Face shuttering, she turned away from him.

It felt like someone had sliced his arm off.

Oliver could do little else as he watched her curl up under the blanket, distancing herself from him. 

It was the distance he himself had created, the distance he had encouraged. 

The distance he wanted.

He tried to believe that as she unwittingly took his heart with him, leaving an empty shell behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think?
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
> **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


	7. Wednesday 11 a.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diggle gets some answers, and Felicity comes to her own conclusions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're so damaged, in their own ways, our beautiful Olicity. And they have so much to break through before they can be everything they both deserve for each other. I'm so glad you guys are here for this journey with me!

  
(81 hours before the gala)

_… so close no matter how far, couldn’t be much more from the heart…_

Diggle had never thought of silence as deafening.  


The faint click of heels. Rustle of papers. Chair wheels on the marble floor. Nobody spoke. Oliver stared at Felicity. She stared at her computer. Diggle watched them both.

Absolutely nothing put a dent in the tension that clogged the air.

Diggle sighed. It was going to be a long day. He’d known it when he walked into the foundry this morning to the kind of quiet that had the hair on the back of his neck rising. Felicity had been at her desk, working on the Russian encryption Oliver apparently brought back last night, much like she was now. Oliver had been standing in the shadows, watching her with a strained look, much like he was now.

The only sign of life came when Felicity tried to get in her own car.

_“I can drive myself there, Oliver.”_

_“It’s not safe.”_

_“You’ll be right behind me.”_

_“Felicity, just… Please. Ride with us. Please.”_

Diggle knew grasping for control when he saw it. He had fully expected Felicity to push back, like she had the night before. Especially at the edge in Oliver’s voice. But something far worse happened. She simply pursed her lips and turned to Diggle with a quiet, _“Shall we?”_

The symbiotic wavelength they usually operated on was in tatters, and their silence was turning it into a damned noose that grew tighter the longer neither of them addressed the elephant in the room.

“Idiots,” he murmured under his breath.

Try as she might, Felicity couldn’t erase the toll of the last few days. The circles under her eyes were deeper, her cheeks wane, eyes dulled. Oliver wasn’t better where he sat at his desk, his computer off, not even trying to keep his eyes off her. If she looked exhausted, he looked like the grim reaper himself.

A buzzing noise cut through the quiet. 

Felicity jumped, her hand flying to cover her heart as her cell screen lit up where it sat on her desk. Huffing at herself, she looked at it, made a face, and ignored the call.

Then her eyes slid to Oliver. 

When she saw his already on her, she snapped back to her computer. The naked need that tore across Oliver’s face was so blatant that Diggle almost felt bad for the poor bastard. He looked lost. Broken. Alone. He watched Felicity as if she were a thousand miles away instead of a dozen and a half feet.

Except there _was_ a path, one that would take him right to her. 

He just refused to walk it.

Just when Diggle thought Oliver was getting better at realizing he wasn’t alone, he flipped a bitch. It shouldn’t surprise him as much as it did. Diggle got it. He knew the demons his friend wrestled with, and none of that even touched on the shit he lived with when he went under that damn hood.

But there was a line, even for Oliver. And apparently that line was Felicity Smoak.

Another buzzing erupted from Felicity’s phone. Diggle caught the screen long enough to see it was her mother calling. Annoyance pinched Felicity’s face as she silenced the ringer. A moment later, though, the screen lit up again, this time from a different number with a Nevada area code. Rolling her eyes and grumbling under her breath, Felicity snatched her phone up. To turn it off, or throw it across the room, Diggle wasn’t sure.

She didn’t get the chance to do either when the abrupt motion knocked over her coffee mug.

Ceramic crashed into glass, sending dark liquid sloshing all over her desk. It streamed right over the edge and into her lap, soaking through the thin floral material of her dress to her bare legs.

“Hot!” Felicity yelped, jumped up, stumbling back. “Hot coffee!” Her chair slammed into the window behind her, but she didn’t notice, her eyes widening as the cream-and-sugar-doused concoction headed right for her office tablet and keyboard. “Oh no, no, no-”

“Got it.” Diggle snatched them up. “Oliver, grab some towels-”

But the man wasn’t in his office.

Oliver materialized at Felicity’s side, pulling her away from the mess. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine, it’s just coffee.” She couldn’t hide the shaking in her voice. Oliver grasped her arms like he wanted to hold her. It was the exact wrong thing to do, apparently, because Felicity stiffened and snapped, “Oliver, back off.”

Oliver’s face fell, but he did just that. 

The tension was so thick Diggle barely heard the coffee hitting the floor where it dripped off Felicity’s desk, or the far-off ringing of Oliver’s desk phone. A loaded look passed between them before she turned away, wiping her hands on her stained skirt. Oliver seemed to collapse in on himself. 

It was like watching a car wreck in slow motion.

“Hey, man,” Diggle said. Oliver started, half-wild eyes flying to Diggle, as if he’d forgotten he was there. Diggle threw him a life raft. “Can you get some towels?”

Oliver’s eyes darted to Felicity. When she added nothing, he gave a low, “Yeah,” and disappeared into his office.

The instant he was out of sight, Felicity deflated. 

She moved to rub her eyes, but made a face when she remembered her coffee-drenched hands. Her shoulders fell when she looked at the rest of the damage.

“I ruined my dress,” she said forlornly, plucking at the material before waving at her feet. “And my shoes. I really loved these shoes. You picked out great shoes.”

“I just grabbed what was in front.” Diggle set her tablet and keyboard on her chair and offered her a smile. She tried to reciprocate, but it fell flat. It was so very not Felicity, and Diggle felt the loss. “Hey, you’d already done all the heavy lifting for me. I know it wasn’t exactly ideal having me rummage through your closet, but I will say it was very organized.”

“I try to make it easy, because me before coffee is a disaster.” Felicity waved at her desk. “Obviously.”

Oliver reappeared, towels in-hand. Felicity went silent as he handed one to her, then one to Diggle, leaving one for him. 

When he moved to wipe down her desk, Diggle yanked the towel out of his hands.

The glare Oliver sent him was both murderous and confused.

“I got this,” Diggle said, nodding to Oliver’s office. He looked ready to argue, but Diggle cut him off with narrowed his eyes and a low, “ _Oliver_.”

But he didn’t move. 

Just when Diggle thought he was going to have to move his ass for him, Oliver looked at Felicity again. She patted at the front of her dress, looking so diminished that it hurt Diggle to watch her. He knew Oliver felt it, because his face fell. With a tiny nod, he left them alone.

The glass door fell shut behind him with a heavy thud.

Felicity let out a bone-weary sigh as she dropped the towel on the coffee puddle on the floor.

Diggle watched her jerky motions for a beat before he started wiping down her desk.

“You’re handling this a lot better than most people would be,” Diggle said after a moment. She snorted. “I’m serious.”

“I don’t feel like I’m handling anything,” Felicity admitted. She waved at her computer. “I can’t even handle the things I’m supposed to handle. I should be able to hack this in my sleep, even with the translations, but I keep tripping over the most obvious traps. I should see them coming. I know they’re there, and yet I keep falling for them. And then I’m too busy backtracking to realize that my program translated a letter into the wrong language, so by the time I realize what’s going on, I’m knee-deep in Serbian, or Bulgarian, or Ukranian. How can one letter mean so many things? How is that even possible? And why can’t I get it straight? Why can’t I figure this out? I should be able to figure this out. This is my thing. I hack. I find things. I dig them up, even when they’re buried under impossible layers of code in a foreign language. This is what I do! It’s what I do for _him_ , and if I can’t do that… Then what am I doing here?”

“Felicity…”

She ducked her head with a little shake, her lips twisting. She suddenly looked so small that he was sure if a gust of wind blew through the office right, it’d take her with it. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“We’re going to figure this out,” Diggle said. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah,” she replied noncommittally.

“It is.”

“But what if it isn’t?” She looked up at him with sad eyes. “And I’m not talking about the whole Russian mafia coming after me thing - although that is terrifying, don’t get me wrong, but… Being here? Being on Team Arrow? I felt like I was finally doing something good. Like I had a place. A purpose. Like I was part of something bigger. I don’t feel that anymore. It’s just gone. And now I can’t do the one thing I’m supposed to be able to do, and he’s shutting me out-”

“Felicity, no. Look, I don’t know what’s going on with him. Something _is_ different about this specific situation, but it’s not you.”

“John…”

“It’s not,” Diggle repeated. “This thing we have going here, it didn’t work before you joined us. You are not a random, small piece of this operation, Felicity. You’re the heart. You are what makes this work. Makes us better. We weren’t complete until you came on board.”

She gave him a watery smile. “That’s really sweet.”

“I’m only stating facts.”

Felicity glanced into Oliver’s office. “If only everyone was on that page.”

Diggle followed her gaze and saw Oliver’s eyes already locked on Felicity. She looked away first, and the remorse that took over the goddamn idiot’s face was painful.

“He sucks at showing it,” Diggle told her, “but he feels the same way.”

Felicity made a noncommittal noise, and he knew she didn’t believe him. And why would she? Actions speak louder than words, and Oliver’s actions of late were fucking screaming.

“I’m going to go change.” Felicity pulled out some clothes from her desk, along with her panda flats. He smiled. At least some things never changed. She picked up her soiled towel and took Diggle’s with a pointed glance. “I’ll be right back.”

The silent, _‘Please don’t pull an Oliver on me,’_ was obvious and Diggle nodded.

With a grateful sigh, she headed to the elevators. The ding sounded almost immediately after she pressed the button. 

Which meant she was gone when Oliver pushed the glass door of his office open.

“She’ll be fine,” Diggle said before he could get a word out.

“They took that picture outside this building,” Oliver threw back before moving to go after her. When Diggle got in his way, he glared daggers. “Move.”

“If you think I don’t have this entire building on lockdown, or that I don’t have people stationed on every floor, well aware that the security precautions I take with you extend to her, then you don’t know me very well.” Diggle raised his eyebrows in challenge, and for a beat Oliver didn’t move. “Oliver. She’ll be okay. C’mon.”

He still didn’t move. The muscle in his jaw ticked. His eyes switched to look to the elevators, and Diggle shifted, bracing himself. A few days ago, the idea of Oliver barreling through him would have been laughable. But after last night? Diggle wasn’t so sure.

Nostrils flaring, Oliver finally spun and stomped back to his desk.

With a relieved breath, Diggle followed him.

Oliver sat down with a hard thud. “Did you find anything at her apartment?” 

Diggle rolled his eyes. He’d expected that question and a dozen more when he walked into the foundry this morning, but of course he waited until Felicity was out of hearing range. The one person who had the right to know about it, considering it was her goddamn apartment.

“Oliver.” Diggle grabbed a chair and dragged it over to sit. “You need to pull your head out of your ass.”

The glare he got was Arrow-worthy.

“No, I didn’t find anything at her apartment,” Diggle told him. “I double-checked the area, did a loop a few times on foot, but I didn’t find anyone. And it didn’t look like anyone had been in there either.”

Oliver clenched his jaw, his eyes ticking over Diggle’s shoulder. Back to the elevator bank. Eyes never wavering, he picked up a pencil. In anyone else’s hands, it would have been a simple writing utensil. But in Oliver’s? Diggle watched him close his fist around it as the muscle in his cheek twitched.

His eyes never left the spot where Felicity had disappeared.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Diggle announced. “Tell me about Russia. And I don’t mean our short stint in Moscow.”

The only sign Oliver heard him was the twitch of an eye.

“C’mon, man.” Diggle sat forward. “It’s obvious you have serious connections to the Russian mob. I didn’t ask before because it was those connections that got me to Lyla, but this is different. Because it’s _here_. I’m not asking for the entire story, but where Felicity’s concerned?”

Oliver flinched.

“Anyone with eyes can see it’s eating at you.”

“I’m fine.”

The pencil snapped in two.

“Oh yeah,” Diggle drawled. “You’re the poster boy for self-control.”

With a snarl, Oliver threw the shattered pieces into the trash so hard they bounced right back out.

“What about the clubs you checked out last night?” Diggle pushed.

Oliver closed his eyes. When he opened them again, it was to stare at his fisted hands. He flexed them, highlighting the bandages covering his left fingers. Spots of blood had soaked through. Oliver pursed his lips, grimacing, and then he settled. But even then, a nervous energy vibrated his entire frame.

It was like he was fighting himself.

Diggle slowly sat back. He had never seen him so on edge, so agitated. So _anxious_. Oliver’s eyes kept darting back to the elevator bank, and Diggle wondered how much of this was just because Felicity was out of sight. A lot, he knew, but it wasn’t just that. Whatever he was keeping to himself, it was bad. Bad enough to make the one man he knew kept his shit tight when it all hit the fan look like he was about to shatter into a million pieces.

It was unnerving, and Diggle knew if he kept pushing, he might shove Oliver right over the edge. 

So he waited.

His patience paid off.

“I found tunnels,” Oliver finally said, so softly he almost didn’t catch it. 

Diggle frowned. “Tunnels?”

“Underground tunnels. The clubs have false walls, and behind them are rooms… Holding cells. They all connect to the abandoned tunnels that run under the Glades. The ones that were supposed to be sealed shut after the Undertaking, but like every other fucking thing in that part of the city, it never happened. That’s how I found the other clubs. Three of them. I looked for the other two Alexi mentioned, but I couldn’t find them. It’s possible they’re using another tunnel, but the archived city plans are so goddamn convoluted, I couldn’t make sense of them, not without…”

_Felicity._

“But I smelled the ocean,” Oliver continued, voice low, dark, “and from what I could see on the plans, the tunnel that connects the clubs also leads to the docks.”

“Jesus,” Diggle breathed. “That could be for drugs, guns-”

“People,” Oliver filled in. He shuddered before falling still, so still Diggle wondered if he was breathing. When he continued, it was without inflection, without emotion. “One was a strip club, one a brothel masquerading as a gentlemen’s club based on the rooms on the upper floors, and the third looked like a basic nightclub. Like Verdant. At least two of them could open tonight if they wanted to.”

“But they’re not,” Diggle surmised.

“My guess is they don’t have authorization to.”

“What does that mean?”

“That’s what the gala’s for.”

Diggle frowned, not following.

“It’s not just the legitimate businesses that need to be up and running, it’s the backroom ones,” Oliver explained, as simply as if he were reading an oven manual. “The people involved in these ventures are paranoid. They never meet outside of certain places or events. Like charity galas, where they have a visible alibi and people are easy to pay off. That’s where they make the final decisions, give the final go-ahead, figure out what happens next, including when and… _how_ the product is handled. Where it comes from. How it’s dispersed.” 

The icy detachment on Oliver’s face chilled Diggle to the bone.

He had seen similar operations all over the world, some far less sophisticated, some more so, and he wasn’t foolish enough to pretend that they weren’t happening all the time, right under their noses. So much focus was on the drug trade that it often left the trade of human flesh to slip through the cracks.

It wasn’t Oliver’s words that rocked Diggle’s foundations. 

It was _Oliver_ , and what they were doing to him. 

He watched all the progress his friend had made over the last few months unravel until the man who sat before him was a stranger.

“There’s a lot of moving pieces to an operation like this,” Oliver continued. “The fronts, like the clubs, they’re easy. They’re designed for laundering the money, but the holding places, and how the product is processed, that takes time. It takes maneuvering. And then there’re the docks. That has to be their flow source. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have things already in motion there. That has to be where the tunnel runs to. I was going to check it out tonight.”

“Flow source…”

“A network of this magnitude, they have to be importing and exporting.”

“People,” Diggle said, needing to say it out loud, to confirm what they were talking about. Horror twisted his gut before a thought hit him. “So, Felicity’s friend…”

Oliver faltered.

It was the first crack in his facade. 

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “The Bratva had a heavier presence here then, and if the club involved them… Most of their clubs are just fronts, and while you can just walk in and get some basic… _amenities_ , the real money is in special requests. The way Felicity described the way she disappeared, it sounds like that’s what happened.”

A chill shot down Diggle’s back. He thought back to the folders he’d seen in the Russian garage, to the Russian’s words, to the picture of Felicity Alexi had given Oliver, his request to bring her to them in exchange for information.

Diggle shook his head. “How do you know all this?”

“Because that’s how it worked at my club.”

Shock rippled the air as the unbelievable words hit Diggle. “ _What_?”

The harsh whisper ripped through Oliver’s mask, and suddenly his brother was back. Whoever he’d been a moment ago - whoever the hell he’d been in Russia - disappeared, leaving a withered corpse in its wake. Skin paling, Oliver let out an unsteady breath, rubbing his fingers over his brow, his fingers bone white from pressing too hard. Diggle knew if Oliver could, he’d shove his fingers through his skull to remove every horrible deed, every ugly thing, every awful choice he’d made.

Diggle thought he knew all the horrors the man before him had seen.

He was wrong.

“What the hell happened to you?” Diggle asked hoarsely.

Oliver laughed, a derisive sound. “You mean what did I do over there?”

“No. I mean, what _happened_. Because the man I know would never do anything like that. Not ever.”

A broken man stared at Diggle.

He said nothing.

Diggle knew there was darkness inside him. There had to be to do what he did every night, but he was more than that. He had worked to become more than that. More than his past. Better than it. But right now it was drowning him. And the worst part? 

He was letting it.

“No.” Diggle shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”

“It doesn’t matter what you believe-”

“How about what I know-”

“It doesn’t _matter_ , Diggle,” Oliver snapped. “It doesn’t change what I did. Or what I didn’t fucking do. Or that I was in charge of a club just like these, and that I was more interested in the status it gave me than giving two shits about what happened inside it. I let the club run the way I assumed they all did. I thought it was just a brothel, that it was… _fair_ -” He laughed, an ugly, fractured sound. “That it was by choice. I didn’t think twice about it because I didn’t have to. I didn’t want to. I didn’t care. Instead, I left a sadistic son of a bitch in my stead, and by the time I realized what was going on, what Matvei was doing, how they were being hurt… and used… I tried to fix it, but it was too late.”

“What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Oliver repeated tiredly. “What matters is that it’s not too late here. We can stop this. We have to.”

The elevator dinged.

New life breathed into the man before him. 

Oliver sat up, his anticipation so intense it made Diggle’s chest hurt. 

It had always been subtle, Oliver’s reaction to her. He knew in Oliver’s mind that it was an absolute no-go, and once upon a time, Diggle had agreed. The last thing Felicity needed was to chip herself against the stone exterior that was Oliver Queen. But Diggle had also wondered if there wasn’t someone who could sneak under the shell, someone who could reach the core of who Oliver was, who could soften him from the inside out… Maybe even heal him.

He had wondered if that person was Felicity after all.

Judging by the look on Oliver’s face, the answer was yes.

Diggle knew the second Felicity swept in because Oliver’s eyes latched onto her. 

Their conversation was far from over, but this needed addressing just as much.

“I know I don’t have to tell you that treating her like she’s made of glass is stupid,” Diggle said.

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

Diggle snorted.

“I won’t let anything happen to her. Ever.” Oliver looked him dead in the eye. “All I want is to protect her. But I don’t know how to do that if she won’t listen to me. She jumped into this thing, half-cocked, not giving a damn about the fucking price-”

“You’re seeing what you want to see, Oliver. Or you’re seeing something that happened instead of seeing her.”

“That is not what I’m doing,” he bit out. 

“You’re acting like she’s got a death wish.”

“She might as well have a fucking death wish! Goddamn it, I just want her safe-”

“And you think she doesn’t?” Diggle challenged. “What do you think she should be doing-”

“Nothing! That’s the point. I don’t want her anywhere near this.”

The words rang with finality and Diggle sat back. “Yeah, I think you’ve made that perfectly clear. The problem with that, though, Oliver, is that you’re not only pushing her away from all of this, you’re pushing her away from you.”

“Good.” Oliver’s eyes switched back to her. “That’s probably for the best.”

“Jesus, Oliver-”

“No, you don’t get it. The things I did…” His eyes glazed over as he stared into the past. “The choices I made defined me. Nothing will change that. And nothing will change that when I tried to fix it, to make it better, all it did was get people killed. I won’t let that happen to her.”

“Then don’t.” When Oliver opened his mouth to argue, Diggle slashed his hand in the air. “No, you have lost your fucking mind if you think I’m going to sit back and let you do this to her. To us. To the team. I get it’s freaking you out. I get that. But you have to remember that you aren’t alone here. You have us. We’re a _team_ , Oliver.”

Oliver didn’t respond. 

He just stared at Felicity.

“Part of why I joined your crusade was to help you find the lines between right and wrong,” Diggle said. “To know when you’re toeing the line, when to back the hell off, and when to fight. Not just for the city, but for yourself. This is one of those times, Oliver. You think keeping her in the dark is the best way to protect her, but it’s not. She can’t read your mind, man. She only sees what you’re doing, not why. You can’t expect her to fall in line without explanation, because that’s not who she is. And you know that.”

“It’s not as simple as a quick conversation-”

“The hell it isn’t,” Diggle countered. “You told me more about all of this in the space of a five-minute conversation than I’ve known since we went to the Russian garage last night. And it’s not just her that needs to understand, Oliver. You need to understand that she can handle this.”

“I don’t…” Oliver’s voice cracked, and he closed his eyes. When he looked at Diggle, naked fear shined in her eyes. “I don’t want to scare her.”

“You can’t control that. All you can do is trust her. And she deserves that. She’s earned that.”

“I know. I do trust her.”

“Then talk to her. Tell her the truth.”

“The truth?” Oliver repeated scathingly. “Like the truth of what they’ll do if they get their hands on her? What will happen if nobody’s there to stop it?”

“Yes,” Diggle replied, and Oliver cursed. “You’re cutting her off, treating her like she’s expendable. You’re so damn worried about what might happen instead of seeing you’re already well on your way to losing her all by your goddamn self.”

Oliver recoiled.

“Talk to her,” Diggle urged. “You can protect her and be honest with her. You can do both.”

“I…” He sank in on himself with a whispered, “I don’t want her tainted by this. By me. I don’t want to lose her.”

“So don’t, Oliver.”

*

She was close.

The patterns in the encryption were finally emerging. Her translation program had started sticking a couple hours ago, making heads and tails of the Cyrillic. Now she was seeing what the firewall was working with, so much so it distracted her from… well, everything else. Such as the old clothes she was wearing. The lingering, sickly sweet smell of coffee no amount of hand soap could get off her skin. The weighted hooks on her eyelids growing heavier and heavier by the minute.

And the man sitting approximately nineteen feet to her left.

Felicity forced her attention to stay on her computer screen.

Instead of a sea of random letters and symbols, lists started forming as she cut further into the encryption. This was quickly becoming a throw-her-fist-in-the-air moment. She definitely would when she got through, which should be any second now…

The door to Oliver’s office swooshed open and Diggle swept past her desk. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Wait, what?” Felicity stood abruptly. “No. Why?”

“Coffee.”

“I’ll go with you,” Felicity called after him. Encryption be damned. It could work on its own for ten minutes just fine as long as she wasn’t alone with _him_. She grabbed her phone. “Wait-”

“I have to do a security sweep, anyway.” Diggle flashed her a smile before disappearing into the elevator bank with a yelled, “You want your usual?”

“Uh. Yeah. I guess. Sure.” Felicity plopped back into her chair. “You’re not as smooth as you think you are, John Thomas Diggle!”

All she got was a quiet chuckle before the elevator arrived, and then it was just them.

Her and Oliver.

Alone.

It took Felicity a full sixty seconds to glance into his office.

For a guy who’d built his entire vigilante life around becoming one with the shadows, Oliver was doing a crap job at being unobvious. She’d seen the Arrow melt into nothing right before her eyes, infiltrate a room filled to the brim with bad guys and take them all out with a mere whisper, hit someone with an arrow before they knew they weren’t alone. 

The guy who hit his knee on the side of the desk and knocked over a stack of papers was the exact opposite of all that.

If it’d been any other day, she might have found it amusing. 

But it was this day.

And this day _sucked_.

She wanted to go home. She might not have been there a lot lately, but she missed her apartment. She missed her routine. She wanted to watch Parks and Rec on _her_ TV all night until _her_ judgmental Netflix asked if she was still watching before falling asleep in _her_ bed. She wanted a long, super hot bubble bath and some wine in her specialty glasses that were more yacht than glass. She wanted to eat a pint of mint chip on her living room floor.

Mostly, though? She wanted to go back to when things weren’t so awful and confusing.

The door to Oliver’s office swooshed open.

And then he was standing before her desk.

Felicity’s fingers paused, but she made herself ignore him and keep typing. Was it childish? Maybe. Did she care? No. 

His gaze lingered on her. She didn’t have to see him to know. She burned with the awareness of it.

“How are you?”

She took a breath before looking up at him. Despite herself, Felicity’s heart stuttered at the soft, earnest look on his face. The calm sea in his eyes was oh so different from the crashing storm that’d smashed her to pieces the night before.

Felicity turned back to her screen. “I’ve been better.”

A pregnant pause.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver mumbled.

She looked up. “Are you apologizing to me, or are you talking to my desk?”

He rolled his lips together and met her gaze. “I didn’t snap at your desk.”

“It was more than a snap, Oliver.”

“I know.” He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s… I’m… I know I’m not handling this well-”

“That’s an understatement.”

“I know,” Oliver reiterated, frustration leaking into his voice. Felicity had to bite her tongue to keep still. “I just… I don’t know how to do this without… I don’t want to push you away.”

The bald statement stunned her.

“I don’t want to,” Oliver repeated, his voice breaking. He took a stuttered breath, his eyes falling shut briefly before whipping back to her. The storm was regathering, but this time it focused inward. “I don’t want to, Felicity.”

“Then don’t.” Felicity stood and rounded her desk. “I’m right here, Oliver.”

She reached for him. Her fingers grazed his thumb, and she swore he sighed at the gentle touch. She inched closer, grasping his thumb, then his hand.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she told him.

“That’s the problem,” he whispered.

She froze.

When his eyes found hers again, the self-loathing there took her breath away. As did the determination. For whatever reason he had, he couldn’t give her what she needed, and it hit her just as hard as it did last night, and the night before.

Felicity let him go, but he grabbed her hand before she could get away.

“This isn’t a normal job,” Oliver gritted out, his grip punishing. “This isn’t a simple case, a simple mission. Nothing about this is simple, because it…”

“What?”

“It involves _you_ ,” Oliver growled. She flinched, but he didn’t let her go. “This is bigger and more complicated and more dangerous than anything we’ve dealt with, and you are right in the fucking middle of it.”

“I didn’t ask to be in the middle of it-”

“But you are, Felicity! And it’s the last place you need to be. I don’t want you near this. I can’t stand the thought of something happening to you. Of them finding you. Of them taking you.” His angry mask slipped and the full force of his fear hit her in a tidal wave. “I wouldn’t be able to find you. Do you understand that? You would disappear, and I would lose you forever. The only way I can make sure that never happens is if you’re somewhere safe, where nobody can get you. I need you safe, and if you could just do that - _please_ \- then I can handle all of this. I can make it go away-”

“You want me out of the way.”

Oliver gritted his teeth on an exasperated exhale. “I want you _safe_ -”

“You think I don’t want to be safe?” Felicity asked, yanking her hand back. “This is scary. More than I can put into words. But so is every other thing we do when we spend our nights together.” She flinched. “God, why does my brain do that?”

“This isn’t funny, Felicity.”

“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “You know what else isn’t funny? That suddenly I can’t handle any of this in your eyes. That because I somehow got pulled into this, I’m now some damsel in distress that needs saving, and can’t possibly do anything to be of any help to you. Even though I’m the one that brought this to your attention! Even though it’s my friend that’s missing! What would have happened if I hadn’t had this flagged? Have you thought about that? I’d probably be gone-”

“You think I don’t know that?” Oliver demanded.

“I think you feel guilty because you didn’t know this was happening,” Felicity said. “And I think you know that this can’t be about me. I think you know that something else is going on, which is why you duplicated their servers so I could find out what that is, and… And I think you hate that you need me for this. That you need me at all, probably, because that means-”

“What I hate,” Oliver interrupted in a heated rush, “is that you’re so goddamn willing to sacrifice yourself when you don’t have to.” 

“And you aren’t?” Felicity retorted. He glared at her and she returned it. “What do you want me to do, Oliver? Sit around, playing the dutiful EA by day and hiding in a factory basement by night, just keeping my mouth shut?”

“Yes!”

Her jaw dropped.

Oliver scowled, whispering, “Fuck,” under his breath. He reached for her. “I didn’t mean-”

A distinct click-clack of heels stopped him dead in his tracks.

Isabel Rochev swept into the room from the elevator bank, holding her laptop and wearing a smirk. Her eyes caressed Oliver in a way that made Felicity’s skin crawl before her chilly gaze skated over Felicity.

The smirk morphed into a mocking smile. “Having an off day, Miss Smoak?”

Mortification heated Felicity’s cheeks.

For a second, she forgot she’d changed into her basic black discount-store skirt, a starchy, striped blouse, and her panda bear flats. By comparison, Isabel looked ready to walk a runway in six-inch heels and a silk dress that looked like someone had poured her into it. 

Despite herself - despite common sense, logic, and everything else - Felicity wilted. 

She had stepped up her game since Oliver’s so-called promotion. The enormous increase in pay had helped, but it was more that she was the first person people saw when they came to see Oliver. She not only played a part in representing him, but the company. She couldn’t work for one of the richest men in the city without at least trying. And she had tried today, damn it. Without her full closet at hand. Without much of anything at hand.

Only to end up in her emergency clothes, reeking of old coffee, and wearing Exhaustion Chic.

In the grand scheme of things, what Isabel thought meant exactly nothing. But it also meant everything. Because her clothes were her armor, and right now she was naked.

And she had nothing to say.

The knowing look on Isabel’s face told Felicity that she was very aware of it, and she was enjoying it.

“Isabel.” Oliver sidled up next to Felicity, his hand finding her lower back as he gave Isabel a plastic smile. “What can we do for you?”

“You can let Miss Smoak get back to work while we get ready for the Samuel-Hill call you took upon yourself to reschedule without consulting me.”

“That’s not ‘til two, though,” Felicity blurted.

“I’m aware of that, Miss Smoak, thank you,” Isabel replied, her gaze shrewd. “But we both know your boss has a slight problem with focus, and I want to make sure he stays on task instead of letting himself get… distracted.”

Oliver’s palm burned on Felicity’s back. She shuffled away, but he just followed her. Felicity had to bite her tongue to stop from snapping at him. How could he not see he was making this worse? 

“Why don’t you go set up,” Oliver offered Isabel with a genial smile, “and I’ll be right in.”

“I’m sure whatever this is,” Isabel said, waving between them, “can wait. You need to know the new program, Oliver, and what it does. Samuel-Hill is our biggest investor out of Gotham.”

“I’m aware of that,” Oliver replied. “And as you know, every board member at Samuel-Hill got the memo Monday morning outlining the specs that Felicity put together. When I talked to Brian Hill to reschedule, he confirmed it, and he confirmed the software uploaded just fine with Felicity’s instructions. We’re ready for the presentation.”

Felicity’s jaw dropped as she looked up at him.

Isabel looked pleasantly surprised and intrigued in a way that had Felicity’s skin crawling again.

Oliver waved her to his office. “I’ll be right in.”

“Don’t take too long,” Isabel replied with a disdainful glance at Felicity before brushing past them toward his office.

“You remembered,” Felicity said.

“I remember everything you tell me.” 

All she could manage was, “Oh.”

His hand was still on her back. “We’re not done talking.”

And just like that, the wonder disappeared. 

Felicity shifted to escape his touch. “What else is there to say?” 

Oliver opened his mouth to reply, but a sharp rap of knuckles on glass interrupted him. They both spun to Isabel staring at them with a pinched face and a tap to her watch. His face tightened before he smoothed it out. He offered Isabel a cool nod, but he didn’t move, looking at Felicity again. When he moved to touch her elbow, Felicity dodged it, walking around her desk.

His hand hovered in the air before he curled it into a light fist.

“We’re not done,” he repeated.

“Yeah,” Felicity said, because that’s what he wanted to hear.

He didn’t move, not until Isabel knocked on the glass again. Felicity looked back at her screen, but she didn’t see any of it. All she saw was him from her peripheral, the flood of emotion on his face, him opening his mouth but nothing coming out.

When she was about to tell him to just go, he turned away.

She only looked at him when his back was to her.

It was just in time to see Isabel’s familiar little sneer as Oliver joined her in his office… as he put his hand on her lower back, right where he’d touched Felicity a moment ago.

An ugly feeling flooded Felicity’s chest.

Pursing her lips, she turned back to her screen.

And missed Oliver’s lingering glance when he looked back at her.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think? 
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
>  **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


	8. Wednesday 4 p.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity breaks the encryption, truths are revealed, and Alexi calls Oliver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only have one thing to say:
> 
>   
> (gif maker unknown, I'm the worst, I apologize)
> 
> A lovely human on Twitter (@Paigeota) has been going through Season 3 recently (and making stunningly gorgeous gifs for each episode) and it's like watching the show all over again! It's great, but do you know what has stuck out the most to me? How absolutely infuriating Oliver Queen was in every single goddamn season. So he's right on track, is what I'm saying.
> 
> On a personal note, I found a second job I really like, and it works well schedule-wise with my first job, which is all great! And even though I'm still revising the last 10 chapters of this monster, I started working on my original book ideas. All that to say that I was doing small revisions last night, and I swear my brain was leaking out of my ears, so any and all mistakes are mine.
> 
> As always, thank you to Jess for her amazing help and encouragement.
> 
> Edit: Gah! Thank you for the geographical help from some of you! I clearly took some shortcuts with my lackluster knowledge.

  
(76 hours before the gala)

_… my friend of misery…_

The hours blurred together.

Later, Oliver wouldn’t know what the hell they talked about during the telephone call. Nor would he appreciate how much talking he did when the spotlight was on him. He was barely aware of Isabel’s pleased smiles, or the monotonous drone of faceless voices, or the tapping of her nails on her laptop. His racing heart was the only thing that registered. It echoed in his ears, flooded his veins with adrenaline and trepidation, all of feeding the miasma of fear choking him.

And he was aware of Felicity. 

Oliver stared at her. He pretended his eyes were on his computer, but they weren’t. He spent every stolen second he could watching her. And waiting. For what? For their last conversation to magically erase itself from existence? For the last several days to not be real? For all this Bratva shit to evaporate as if it’d never been there, leaving them where they had been before it all went to hell?

Diggle was right. He was losing her, and he didn’t know what to do.

No, he knew what to do. What he should do. But the instant he thought about telling her anything, his entire body seized.

Like now.

Oliver closed his eyes and squeezed his left hand into a bloodless fist under the table. But the pain didn’t work this time. It didn’t stop the inane chatter from needling at him until he wanted to scream, or keep what felt like wet sand from filling his lungs. Cold sweat skated over his arms and chest, scalding his skin with acid. Nausea cut through him and his stomach clenched around the few bites of lunch he’d forced down under Isabel’s watchful eye.

The lunch Felicity had brought in.

She hadn’t looked at him once.

What was he going to do?

His phone rang, a sharp trill in his breast pocket. 

Isabel’s eyes shot wide with incredulity. Oliver offered her a tight smile as he snaked it out and shut the ringer off. He hoped to hell it was Alexi, or better, Anatoly. But it was neither. Thea’s name flashed on the screen. Biting his lips together, he sent her to voicemail. 

A series of text messages instantly followed.

_TQ: answer ur phone  
TQ: OLLIE  
TQ: fine w/e mtg w jean Sat morning abt mom’s trial_

Oliver closed his eyes with a silent, “Fuck.”

He hadn’t let himself think about everything else going on in his life. That didn’t mean his family didn’t need him, or that he had promised to be there. But he also knew it wouldn’t be long before the Bratva were branching out of the Glades, before they started buying out police, politicians, business owners, investors…

This had to come first.

With a heavy heart, Oliver put his phone back in his pocket.

He would fix it. Somehow. Later.

Isabel’s eyes bored into him, and it took considerable effort not to glare at her.

It just reminded him that this meeting was a waste of goddamn time. He needed to move. To act. To do something. Punch until his knuckles cracked and bled. Run, chase, _hunt_. Find Alexi and beat the information out of him. Instead, he was in this goddamn glass cage, drowning in a sea of meaningless voices he didn’t care about. All he wanted was to stop the Bratva’s press on his city, to rebury the jagged pieces of his past… 

_Felicity_. 

She didn’t look into his office once.

_Look at me. Please._

Nothing.

His ribs shrunk as the walls started moving in and Oliver closed his eyes. Wasn’t this just confirmation that she was a distraction he couldn’t afford? He should push her away, for her sake and his.

But he didn’t want to. He needed her. More than he knew how to comprehend. 

He willed her to look at him. If she felt his gaze, she gave no sign. Her focus stayed on her screen, her fingers flying over the keyboard, her mind working so fast he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up. She was so damn smart, so intuitive, her brain making connections it took him days to reach. 

That was why she was in this goddamn mess in the first place, he reminded himself.

But stopping her was snuffing out that brilliant flame of hers, and that turned him inside out just as much.

Isabel cleared her throat.

Oliver’s eyes snapped back to find her staring at him with raised eyebrows as she gestured her head at the phone.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver said, sitting up taller. “What was the question?”

“No problem, Mr. Queen, it was about-”

Felicity jumped up from her chair with a shout. He couldn’t hear it through the soundproofed glass, but he didn’t have to as her hands shot into the air. Elation transformed her face as she said something to Diggle before grabbing her chair and sitting back down.

She broke the encryption.

“I’m sorry, I need to cut the call short,” Oliver said, cutting the man off mid-sentence. Isabel’s jaw dropped, venom lighting up her eyes, but he ignored her as he leaned over the phone. “Something’s come up.”

Isabel grabbed his wrist before he could hang up. He glared at her, but she didn’t care, glaring back as she squeezed his bones together as hard as she could. “Thank you for taking the time, gentlemen,” she said. “I think this program will help you see how far Queen Consolidated has come and where we’ll be going.”

“I look forward to more-”

“Yes, thank you,” Oliver said and ended the call.

“Oliver,” she hissed.

He barely saw her as he said, “Thank you for being here, Isabel, but I really do have to go,” because his eyes were on Diggle joining Felicity at her desk. Oliver snapped Isabel’s laptop shut and handed it to her as he rounded his desk. “Thank you for being on the call.”

She followed his gaze and huffed. “Absolutely not happening, huh?”

Oliver barely kept himself from twisting that smirk off her lips. He opened his office door. “Have a good day.”

Felicity and Diggle immediately quieted as Isabel swept through the room. She paused in front of Felicity’s desk with an amused, “He’s all yours,” before disappearing into the elevator lobby. The doubt in Felicity’s eyes when they darted to him and away again made him want to stab something. He was more hers than she would ever know. And judging by the look Isabel shot back at him, she knew it too. 

His stomach bottomed out as Isabel gave him a saccharine sweet smile before disappearing.

None of them moved as the doors closed behind her, as a pregnant silence filled the room.

It only grew heavier when he glanced at Felicity and saw her watching him before looking away again.

“You got through?” Oliver asked roughly.

His steps were stilted as he came up to Felicity’s other side.

“Yes. Finally.” Half a dozen screens popped up and disappeared in the space of a few seconds as she whipped through information at the speed of light. “I’m looking for Camille right now, but there are hundreds… _thousands_ of names here…” She pulled up a random spreadsheet. “They’re organized by age, sex, hair and skin color, blood type, body type, even allergies. This isn’t like any employee list I’ve ever seen…”

Oliver stilled. “That’s not what this is.”

He glanced at Diggle and saw the instant the other man made the connection. 

“That what is it? Why would they need all this information, and on so many people…” Felicity looked up at Oliver, then Diggle, and he knew when she got it. “No,” she whispered. “Human trafficking?” 

Oliver’s throat closed as she scrolled… and scrolled. Human beings broken down to a single line of information, identities replaced with numbers and labels. 

Shards of glass ripped through his chest.

“What are these?” Felicity tapped a column of three-digit numbers. “Not all of them have one.”

“Country codes,” Diggle answered, his voice belying the utter calm on his face. “I don’t know some of these, but this one, 004, that’s Afghanistan. This one is Ireland, I think. This is Uzbekistan. Italy, Lebanon. 840 is the U.S.”

“Is this where they’re from, or…” Felicity paled. “Is there where they were sent?”

“Yes,” Oliver whispered.

“Oh god.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if I want to find Camille in here or not. If she is, if they took her…”

“She might still be alive.” Oliver squeezed her shoulder. She looked up at him and the tears in her eyes flayed him from the inside out. He forced his voice to stay even. “This could be the lead you were looking for, Felicity.”

“Yeah.” She tried for a fortifying breath. “I just don’t want it to be. I want to give Mrs. Fernandes good news, but there is no good news here, is there? Not if… Wait, these dates-”

“What?”

“Look. These are recent, the ones in this document are from this month, and they have these other codes… These are zip codes.” Felicity mumbled to herself as she pulled up each of them and then paused. “The clubs. The three places you checked out, that you found, these zip codes are for them. And there’s a few more.”

Oliver met Diggle’s eye over Felicity’s head, remembering Alexi’s comment about five clubs.

“But the dates here, in this document,” Felicity continued, switching between windows. “They stop. In August 2012. The acquisitions part of it, at least. They were still, uh… shipping out. But everything stopped by the end of 2012. And there’s nothing after that until now.”

A dark rot twisted deep in Oliver’s gut.

_“I have one request.”_

_“After all this, you still have a request?”_

_“After everything I’ve done for you and the brotherhood, you owe me.”_

_“You say that after what happened in Kaliningrad? Bah. Either way, for that business, you are settled with Bratva. This request? A deal between brothers. What do you need?”_

_“Pull the Bratva out of Starling City.”_

_“You mean completely?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“That is a big request.”_

_“I know. And I know I’ll owe you, Anatoly, but I want them out. Completely.”_

_“You understand I cannot completely remove them, yes? That I won’t. Still, it is good to rotate operations now and then. Perhaps it is time for Starling City to have break…”_

Oliver choked on the memory, but more than that, on the weight of what it meant.

How many people had disappeared because of his request? If he hadn’t come back, if he hadn’t asked Anatoly to do that, could he have saved them from their fate? Yes. He’d been so damn selfish, more concerned with erasing the past than fixing it. He assumed the Bratva would back off their practices when the spectacle in Kaliningrad caught the media’s attention. How stupid of him. How _naïve_. They just pushed it so deep underground that nobody could see it. Oliver had stopped nothing. Instead of hurting their operation, he’d merely greased a fresh set of wheels. How many people had paid the price? How many had died because of him? How many shipped off to far worse places, sold to the highest bidder in what was practically a fucking liquidation sale?

There hadn’t been time for the consequences of his request. He hadn’t let there be time. 

All he’d cared about was getting away from his demons, from the monster he had become.

Oliver closed his eyes and bowed his head. It was all his fault. His inside churned, revolting, and he clasped his right hand over his left, squeezing until the pain in his cuts distracted him. Enough to breathe, at least. 

“Oh no…”

“What?” Oliver asked, eyes flying open. He watched the color drain from her face and he cupped the side of her neck. “What is it?” 

“Camille,” she whispered, her voice breaking. She trembled as she pulled up a spreadsheet, one line highlighted, before she enlarged it, the lines becoming clearer - _Camille Analilla Fernandes_. “She’s in here. That’s her name, and the date… It’s a couple days after the last time anyone saw her at the club. March 4, 2009.”

She didn’t waste a second, finding the column with the country codes.

“348? Where is that? What country-”

“Hungary,” Oliver rasped.

Everything inside him froze. The ground fell away. The world tilted. The only thing keeping him standing was his hold on Felicity. He clung to her as the rest of him floated in a horrific suspension of memories and fears. He heard voices - Felicity, Diggle - but they got lost in the rush of his mind, filling in the blanks the black and white data could not. There were plenty of trafficking rings in Hungary, but the Bratva ruled Budapest, and they did so with an iron fist. 

He should know. 

Once upon a time, it had been his domain.

There hadn’t been a Camille there, not that he remembered. But so many of the women had different names.

“Is there a picture?” Oliver tried to say, but the words didn’t pierce the white noise screaming in his ear, or the memories… 

_… drips of thick, dark red splashing in the sea of blood, saturated hair, mouths gaped, necks slit, hooks suspending the bodies upside down high off the ground, eyes glassy and lifeless, every single one of them on him, terror frozen in their faces as they swayed in the icy winds battering the Kaliningrad port, the gusts doing nothing to wash away the horrifying smell of a slaughterhouse…_

“Is there a picture?” he repeated, harsher, his voice shaking.

A warm hand on his jerked him back to reality.

Oliver inhaled sharply and looked down in surprise to Felicity staring up at him with a worried frown, her fingers on his. “Oliver, you’re hurting me.”

Her voice pierced the horror. 

In a snap, he was back in the present, back with Felicity and Diggle at Queen Consolidated. And he was holding her so tight. Too tight. 

Oliver wrenched away with a broken, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” as he stumbled back from her. His fingers throbbed from gripping her so hard, and the rare sun-filled day showed the red marks on the nape of her neck.

His stomach twisted wildly.

Especially when Felicity jumped up to follow him.

“Don’t,” he grated. A fine tremble shook his entire frame, the control he prided himself on gone. Breathing too hard, every inhale sandpaper against his throat, Oliver clenched his left hand into a fist and demanded, “Is there a picture?”

“No,” Felicity replied softly. He squeezed his eyes shut, only to snap them open when she added, “But I have a picture of her.”

“Show me,” he whispered.

“It’s from the wanted poster Mrs. Fernandes put together,” Felicity told him. Oliver gritted his teeth. A few clicks and… “Here.”

The world faded, leaving nothing but the haunting presence of a ghost.

 _Katrya_.

The madam of the club in Budapest. 

The woman who had nearly taken his head off with a knife when he admitted his ignorance. Who had walked him through the secret rooms in the cellar. Who had shown him the bloody results of the business that brought so much revenue to the Bratva. Who had told him what Matvei had done in his stead. Who had helped him put his plan into motion.

She smiled in the picture her mother had used, and it was so startling to see that he almost let himself believe it was a different person. But it was her. The same dark golden skin, same whiskey eyes, same thick black hair. She had always kept it half-up, delicate wisps curling at her temples, an illusion of seduction, but really a way to hide the vicious whip scars across her upper back. All the innocence the picture before him held had faded by the time he met her, replaced with the sharp edge of a hard-lived life, aging her well beyond her years. The last time he’d seen her, she’d smiled up at him, but it was nothing like the picture - it had been wry, humorless, eyes filled with more sorrow and pain than anyone deserved to feel before she sent him off to finish their plan.

“ _Go_ ,” she had said, her voice husky from smoke and brandy, a lilt on her tongue he now knew hid her country of origin. “ _Take care of them_.”

By the time he got back from Kaliningrad, all he’d found was her severed finger and a blood-soaked rug.

Oliver ran.

He darted to the bathroom in his office. He barely made it, slamming the door open hard enough to dent the wall as he stumbled to the toilet, wrenching the seat up, already retching. Fire licked up his throat, chalky acid coating his tongue, his head pounding viciously. When his stomach was empty, he kept heaving, trying to get the rest of it out, the darkness, who he was.

A hand brushed over his back. 

“Can you get me a washcloth? Wet it? Here, Oliver.”

He took the offering with numb fingers and wiped his face. A small glass of water appeared next. The thought of drinking anything had his stomach revolting again, but he forced himself to take a sip. He rinsed the acrid taste out of his mouth before dropping the seat and falling back against the wall next to the toilet.

 _Go_ , he thought desperately, squeezing his eyes shut, silently begging her, _please just go_.

Felicity cupped his cheek.

Longing filled him, so intense and heady that he almost cried. She felt so good, her touch so comforting. Tears burned his eyes as he turned his face into her palm, so warm and smooth against his hard edges. The solace it gave him was fleeting, but it was enough. Because it was _her_ and she was all he needed…

That, and absolution.

Which he would never get.

He knew when she found out what happened to her friend, she would never touch him again.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver whispered.

Tears filled her eyes. “You know her?”

There was so much hope in her voice that it stunned him into silence.

He gave himself that single second of her touch, let himself linger… 

“I knew her,” he corrected. “She died a week before I came back to Starling City.”

Felicity yanked her hand back.

It hurt more than any lashing he’d ever received.

Unable to look at her, Oliver switched his gaze to a spot over her shoulder as words he never thought he’d say fell out.

“Her name wasn’t Camille. I didn’t know that was her real name. I knew her as Katrya. She was the madam for the club I was in charge of in Budapest.” The shock that radiated through the bathroom slashed into him, and he knew he was changing the way she saw him. The way they both saw him. Irrevocably. “All I knew about her was she used to be a prostitute, and that some bastard had left her scarred. On her back, and… and in other places. But she was an investment, and her face was intact, so they put her in a new position. She was the one who showed me what was happening to the women who came through the club. Through _my_ club. How it was used to sell them. And even though I… even though I let it happen, she still… Against all odds, she still trusted me to get the girls out of the country, but it… I failed. I failed her, and I failed them. And god, Katrya, what they did to her… _Camille_. To Camille…” His tongue tripped over her name. “What they…”

He couldn’t say the rest of it.

“It’s my fault,” he continued. “She died because of me. After things went bad at the docks, they sent people to fix it, to get rid of everybody. I tried to get back there, before they could, but by the time I did…”

 _Excuses_.

That’s all the words were, and none of them made up for what he did. If not for him, she’d be alive today. They would know where she was and how to get her out. If not for him, the Bratva would never have pulled out of Starling City, and all those people wouldn’t have been scattered around the world. Were they even still alive? And what about the people who didn’t get transported out? How many of the people missing in the Glades long before the Undertaking were because of him? 

He should never have come back. Everyone - from his mother to his sister, to Diggle, to Felicity, to strangers he’d never met, people whose lives he’d destroyed - they had all been better off.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

It wasn’t just for Felicity, or Diggle, but for all of them. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough, but that was why he did what he did. That was why he went out every night. But even that couldn’t balance out all the red in his ledger. Nothing would, and it was foolish to think it was even possible, that he could ever have any semblance of a normal life if he did… 

He never should have come back.

A sharp vibration rattled from his pocket.

It was a sharp kick of reality. It was happening again, right here, in his city. He couldn’t save the people he’d already damned, but he could damn well stop it from happening again. And he would. The hundreds of names - possibly thousands - that Felicity had unburied, adding that to the files at the Russian garage, and that somebody had already specifically requested Felicity?

Shame and fear morphed into rage in the blink of an eye.

_Not again._

Felicity gasped at whatever she saw on his face, whispering, “Oliver…?” but he was already standing. He picked her up off the floor without a second thought and set her on her feet before tugging his phone out.

He shoved out of the bathroom and answered the call.

“ _It’s about fucking time, Alexi_ ,” Oliver growled in Russian.

“Bad day, _Kapitan_?” 

“ _I’m not in the mood_ ,” Oliver bit back. “ _Do you have what I want or not_?”

Diggle appeared in front of him. He motioned to his ear, then the phone. He wanted to hear. Oliver’s eyes immediately snapped to Felicity, who watched him with equal parts confusion, wariness, and concern. For him, or for her? He almost laughed - of course it was for her. He’d just burned the fuck out of that bridge, hadn’t he?

Everything he’d been so worried about was no longer a problem. 

It was time she found out exactly what they were up against.

Oliver turned on speakerphone as Alexi said, “I do not have the information you requested.”

It was the exact opposite of what he expected to hear.

Pressure built at the base of Oliver’s skull, and it was only years of self-control that kept him from shattering his phone against the closest wall. He gritted his teeth, forcing calm, and twisted his head to relieve the ache. He was nowhere near satisfied when a crack rang out.

“Excuse me?” he asked, deadly quiet.

“You must attend the gala if you wish to speak to the parties involved.”

Oliver nearly bit through his goddamn tongue.

“I’d rather handle this personally,” he snapped. “They are in my city, without my permission-”

“And you well understand why that is, Captain,” Alexi replied. “The gala is where your discussions must take place. You are still planning on attending, no? I passed on to Moscow that you intend to be at the gala. I was told Anatoly was pleased.”

Oliver knew if he didn’t relinquish his grip on the phone, he was going to crack it in half.

He caught Felicity turning to Diggle, a silent, _‘Gala?’_ on her lips, to which Diggle shook his head and mouthed back, _‘Later.’_

“Of course,” Oliver forced himself to say. “Still, there must be someone in the city I can speak to about these clubs now.”

“The gala is where the discussion happens,” Alexi repeated. “I have procured the invitations for you and I will send them to your home.”

Oliver frowned. “Invitations?”

“Yes. For you, and for Felicity Smoak.”

All the air sucked out of the room in a whoosh. 

His eyes flew to the woman in question. Felicity stared at him with wide, alarmed eyes, having no idea what was happening, no idea what this meant. The world dropped away and every ounce of his attention zeroed in on the phone. He didn’t hear, feel, taste, see anything else but the words that’d just left Alexi’s mouth.

“She is not going,” Oliver said, low and harsh.

“She has been labeled a valuable commodity,” Alexi explained. “One you now claim as your own. You must bring her to the gala. As proof.”

“Proof?” he spat.

“To prove to the interested parties she is, as you say, ‘off limits.’”

Red skated over his vision.

But there was something else.

Fear.

Tendrils of it speared through him, each one laced with barbs covered in poison that seeped through every inch, suffocating him as an image rose in his mind. Felicity, in the middle of a large room, stripped down, bare to anyone who cared to look, and all of them did. A circle surrounded her, closing in, and Oliver stood on the outside, watching, immobile and powerless, watching the realization hit her, the terror blossom on her face, the horror, before they converged. Urgency cracked him open, and he felt his hands gripping the bodies on her as he ripped them away only to find nothing but her broken glasses-

A flash of her in shadow, reaching for him, being yanked away-

Her screaming-

“No,” Oliver snarled, slamming his fist on his desk. “I said she’s off limits, and that’s all that fucking matters. There’s nothing to prove.”

Alexi tsked, and the condescending sound had more red bleeding into Oliver’s vision.

“That is not how this works, Mr. Queen, and you know this,” the Russian said. “You stepped on important toes when you claimed her as your own. Bring her, you get the information you want, and you prove you are honorable. It is simple. But if you don’t…”

The thinly veiled threat sent him over the edge.

“I told you what would happen if you didn’t get me what I wanted, Alexi,” Oliver bit out, violence whipping through him. He stared at his desk blindly, not seeing anything but Alexi’s face, broken and bleeding by his hand. “I don’t make empty promises. I want the names of every person involved in these clubs-”

“Be careful what you say, _Kapitan_. These promises of yours might come back to haunt you.”

“And,” Oliver continued over him, stabbing his finger into his desk, “I want to know who wants her.”

“You know that is not how this works. This is the trade. Bring her.”

The dial tone sounded.

“Fuck!” Oliver barked. He threw his phone across the desk, and it slammed into his monitor, then clattered to the ground. He stalked away, towards the window, scrubbing his hands over his head, digging dull nails into his scalp. “ _Fuck_.”

“It’s a trap,” Diggle said. “You’d basically be wrapping her in a bow and handing her over to whoever-”

Oliver rammed his fist into the glass.

He didn’t feel his bones screaming, or hear the alarmed gasp behind him as he spun around and stalked towards Diggle.

“You think I don’t know that?” Oliver demanded.

“Okay, hey,” Felicity said somewhere in the background, but neither of them acknowledged her.

Diggle didn’t budge when Oliver stopped just short of running into him, and he didn’t back down. Oliver wanted to mow him down, and he just barely stopped himself from doing it. His rage wasn’t for Diggle, but he had to do something, otherwise he was going to explode. Diggle saw it, loud and clear on his face, and he lowered his voice, like he was talking to a caged animal. It pissed Oliver off even more when his hands came up in quiet placation. 

“Okay. So what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver grated out and he spun away again. “I don’t fucking know.”

All he knew was she couldn’t go. She wouldn’t. 

The image of men surrounding her flooded his mind again, and on its heels a hollow scream bellowed in his head. 

Oliver paced his office, but with each pass, the space grew smaller, closing in on him. His hands twitched to lash out and beat the walls back as his breaths came and went in quick, uneven bursts, black spots peppering his vision.

Not her.

_Never her._

Ice-cold clarity washed through him. 

“I’m hitting the docks tonight,” Oliver said, deadly calm. He buried the panic as deep as he could as he turned to Diggle. “If those tunnels have an outlet, I’ll find it. They have to have space by the water, a warehouse, maybe more, that they use for shipments. That means someone down there knows about this. I’m going to find them and make them talk.”

He went back to his desk, grabbed his phone, and turned to leave.

Felicity was right behind him.

He just barely stopped himself from running her over.

“What did he mean?” she asked softly. There was an almost serene quality about her that had the hair on the back of his neck rising. “What did he mean when he said you claimed me?”

His instinct was to lie. But when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.

Because she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t worried. 

She wasn’t looking at him like the monster he was.

“I told them you’re mine,” Oliver said bluntly. Her eyes widened, just enough to give away her surprise, and he stepped closer, invading her space, towering over her. “I told them you belong to me, Felicity. If anyone comes near you, if anyone touches you, they will have to answer to me. That’s what that means.” 

Felicity blinked, a shaky, “Oh,” slipping out.

“I will kill to protect what is mine,” Oliver told her, voice gritty and thick. “And you are _mine_ , Felicity.”

Her cheeks colored as she took a slow, uneven breath, her eyes dropping to his lips before meeting his gaze again. He swore her pupils expanded. Despite himself, his gut clenched at the heavy-lidded look and he wondered if she enjoyed hearing what he just said.

It wasn’t possible, though. 

He was the monster. 

He was the darkness.

He had wanted to be better. To try a different way. To stop killing. But now all he wanted to do was kill every single son of a bitch in the Bratva. He wanted to so badly he could taste it. And the worst part was, he didn’t care that he wanted to. He would _enjoy_ it. And that put him in the same category as the Bratva, didn’t it? But he already knew that. He was Bratva. He had tried to be better…

But he wasn’t. 

And now she knew it.

“That makes it better, then.”

Oliver went still. “That makes what better?” 

“Me. Going to the gala.”

Oliver jerked back. “No. _No_. You are not going to the gala.”

“He just said you have to bring me if you want to get anything-”

“I don’t care! You’re not going.”

“Oliver, you cannot tell me that this isn’t the best option.” Felicity followed him when he fell back, running into his desk. She crowded him and he almost picked her up and moved her. “It’s direct access to the people behind the trafficking we just uncovered. They are taking people from our city and selling them off and if this is how we can help them-”

“They want _you_ , Felicity!” he snarled and her mouth snapped shut. “That is how they will get you.”

“You just told me that nobody can touch me,” she said. “Because I’m yours, right?”

“It’s not that simple,” he retorted. “If you are out of my sight for even one second, they get you-”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“How can you say that, after everything I just told you about Katrya? About Camille?” Oliver demanded. “Your friend was sold, Felicity. Her life was ruined. They scarred her so viciously that a consolation prize was not being used for sex anymore. Instead, they made her pimp others out, and when she tried to do something about it, they killed her. She was murdered.”

“And how many others are being hurt in that exact same way? If we can help them, save someone from her fate, then I’m going to do it.”

“Even if it becomes your fate?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Oliver growled, grabbing her arms and yanking her into him. She gasped, but he didn’t back down. “You are not going-”

“He said you have to bring me,” she told him a shaky voice. “Which means if you don’t, we get nothing. How are we going to help anyone if we don’t-” 

“Do you have any idea what I’ll have to do to prove my claim on you?” Oliver gripped her so hard he knew he had to be leaving bruises, but he didn’t care, not as he shook her, using every bit of leverage he had to make her see. “To make them believe you are mine? This isn’t an underground casino you can just walk into. This isn’t a casual party where you come and go as you please. It’s a cover for Bratva business, which means every eye at that party will be on us, our every move scrutinized, because they need to _see_ my claim, to see that I… that I _own_ you, Felicity… and that nobody else ever will-”

Horror choked him.

Oliver gasped against the crushing weight of it, gripping her even harder, his face twisting. 

“Don’t make me do that,” he whispered. Begged. “Please.”

Heartbreak tore across her face, but underneath it was a determination he knew too well.

The floor crumbled under his feet and Oliver groaned, sagging against her, his eyes squeezing shut. His forehead hit hers with a thud as he pulled her closer still, as close as he could, not caring when she grimaced in his grasp because he held her too hard.

“Please, Felicity,” he tried again.

“Nobody knew.” Her breath danced over his lips, a hint of tears in her voice. “Nobody knew what happened to her. I had to watch her mother spend years looking for her because nobody knew. Not knowing, Oliver, that’s the worst thing you could wish on somebody. And now I have to tell her that her daughter is dead, after all this time, and how can I do that and not stop it from happening again? If I can save someone from that, if we can stop them before they ruin more lives? We have to. I have to.”

Oliver groaned. “Felicity…”

Her hands shook when she reached up to his chest. “Oliver-”

“I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t,” she whispered. “You’ll be there.”

Oliver flinched. God, she didn’t get it. 

Felicity shook her head. “And I can’t let the people who hurt her get away with this-”

“ _I_ hurt her, Felicity.” Indignation crackled through him, and he pulled back to look her dead in the eye. “I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t stop her from dying. She is dead because of me. _Me_. I was the one who sealed her fate. I might as well have cut her throat myself, so stop acting like you’re safe with me, because you’re not. Do you understand? I will not let the same thing happen to you. I won’t let it.”

“Oliver-”

“No.” He let her go abruptly. “You keep referring to the Bratva as if they aren’t right here in the room with you.”

“No-”

“Yes! And I fucking refuse to bring you into more than you already are. You have no idea - _no idea_ \- what I’ve done and what I will do if it means keeping you safe.” He got in her face. “I will chain you to a goddamn pole in the foundry if I have to.”

Anger clouded her features. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” Oliver said.

“What else is there?” Felicity demanded. “The Bratva have buried everything and anything that could lead to their actual identities. The names that these people use, that the FBI knows about, they are ghosts! If going to the gala is the way to end this-” 

“Not with you.”

“Yes, with me!”

“That is not fucking happening, Felicity, it will never happen.”

“Oliver-”

“No!” He slashed his hand through the air. “You’re not going.”

“Yes, I am-”

Panic welled up so hard it choked him.

He saw it all unfolding before him - going to the gala, her disappearing, being taken, lost, _forever_ … 

“No,” he groaned, shaking his head, burying his face in his hands, but they shook too. Every inch of him shook.

Felicity touched his arm.

Oliver shoved past her and Diggle and ran out of his office. He didn’t bother with the elevators, instead slamming into the stairwell. He was already down a flight by the time the heavy door crashed into the concrete wall, down another when it swung shut. By the time it opened again with an echo of his name and a flash of blonde several floors up…

He was gone.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think? 
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
>  **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


	9. Wednesday 6 p.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver keeps digging, and Felicity fights to accept what happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, my revision addiction got the best of me. Like the super best of me with this chapter. All mistakes are mine.
> 
> Enjoy!

  
(74 hours before the gala)

_… pay the price, pay, for nothing’s fair…_

Oliver didn’t remember how he got back to the foundry.

The thin tendrils of his world he kept so carefully controlled, that made up the tenuous stability he depended on so much, snapped and frayed at the edges, leaving only a chilled certainty.

She wasn’t going anywhere near the Bratva.

Familiar motions took over. His mind clicked off as he went through the routine he’d done hundreds of times. He filled his arsenal, checked his bow, restocked his arrows, ran his fingers over his sleeves and legs, making sure everything was ready. He smeared his face with greasepaint. He slipped his gloves on, then tugged his hood into place.

Darkness.

The cold clarity he’d found sharpened into deadly purpose.

His phone rang where he’d left it in his suit pocket, but he ignored it, leaving the foundry.

A storm brewed on the horizon, pitch-black clouds smothering the sunlight the day had boasted. It sent long shadows slanting across the dirty alley, heavy bands that hid him better than nightfall ever could as he made his way to his bike. 

The closest club. The tunnels. The docks.

He’d find something. And if he didn’t, he would burn it all down.

Oliver spun the bike in a tight circle and shot out into the street.

He got to the Red Room in a handful of minutes. Leaving his bike in a nearby alley, he shot up the closest fire escape and ran to his target. Even though it was still early, the street teemed with activity. Women appeared on corners, cars stopped and went, doors to rundown apartment buildings and seedy bars started a constant rotation that would last well into the night. 

Oliver shot an arrow across the street, a thick wire following. 

Without skipping a beat, he hooked his bow over the line and jumped just as it pulled tight, sending him soaring over the street.

He knew exactly where to go, having mapped the club the night before. The last thing he wanted was to leave a trail, so he'd skipped the fingerprint scanners and shattered the lock on an air vent instead. Still broken, he yanked it open and slipped inside. Oliver ran down the steps, past the floor with the specialty rooms marked with ‘PRIVATE,’ past the office level, and down to the main floor. 

The shadows aided him as he headed right for the coatroom.

Oliver tugged on the last hook in the far corner and with a slight hiss, the wall shifted back, then slid open. 

Just like in Budapest.

He followed the utilitarian steps down a narrow walkway, past a series of rooms - some offices, some storage, some filled with boxes, others with furniture such as makeshift beds and chairs - and to the small door at the very back that opened up to the tunnel. Turning on a pin light he clipped to his chest, Oliver stepped in. Damp and musty, the passage stretched on in both directions, yawning mouths of darkness that promised nothing but dust, dirt and cobwebs. 

Salt thick in the air, Oliver started working his way to the docks. 

He got lost half a dozen times trying to match the pathways to the map of the Glades in his mind, and by the time he ran into a ladder leading to a newly installed underground hatch, he was vibrating with agitation.

“Fucking _finally_ ,” he grunted, popping it open.

Cool, humid air greeted him. 

And voices. 

One high and nasally, the other too low to hear.

“… you tell that prick to pony up the dough if it goes down like this again, you got that?… She was supposed to be here tonight!… Yeah, well, he can shove it. There’s only so much I put up with… You think this is easy, huh? Now I gotta pay for 600 miles of gas! You think that’s cheap in this rig… Nah, I’m the best, and he better _remember_ that. Nobody gets me, nobody knows what I’m doing, and that’s what he’s paying for…”

A door closed, muffling the words completely.

Oliver snuck through the opening cut into the floor of what turned out to be a tiny office. Through spindly walls that were half-glass, he saw the full expanse of a large warehouse.

The faint lapping of water against the docks filtered through windows high on the walls.

Keeping crouched, Oliver darted out of the office. Scanning the space quickly - it was empty, cleaned out, not even a speck of dust in the air - he ran to the door where the voices had disappeared. When he inched it open, he caught the taillights of a car driving away.

And the form of someone else opening the driver’s side door of a large semi-truck.

“These fucking assholes think they can play Paul Bindarra, well they can go fuck themselves-”

Oliver was on him before he could climb up the first step. 

The man’s startled scream morphed into a screech as he suddenly swung around to slam into the side of the metal trailer. The man - Bindarra - spun and tried to bat the Arrow away with limp fists.

Oliver knocked them out of the way and punched him in the jaw. 

He crashed back into the trailer, his head slamming into it with a wet thud. 

Another punch had his head rocketing back again, and this time the tang of copper filled the air. Bindarra stumbled along the side of the trailer, howling in pain, but terror instantly replaced it as Oliver stalked after him. With a cry, Bindarra turned to run, but he tripped over his own feet and fell. His chin crashed into the ground, his hands skidding on the asphalt, his pants tearing at the knees. He still shot up, scrambling away, dropping to roll under the trailer.

An arrow left Oliver’s bow.

Wire snapped out and wound around one of his ankles before whipping over the body of the trailer and snapping tight. It pulled Bindarra’s leg out from under him and yanked him upside down halfway up the side of the truck.

“No!” Bindarra shrieked. A flip phone fell from his grasp, skittering across the ground. He tried to lift himself up to grab at the wire, using his pants to climb up his leg, but he was too weak. Oliver slowly moved to stand before him. The acrid stench of fear filled the air. And urine. Oliver’s face twisted up in disgust even as part of him relished Bindarra’s needless struggles. Bindarra shook violently as he begged, “Please, I don’t know nothin’, I swear!”

“What were you supposed to pick up tonight?” Oliver growled.

“Nothin’!”

Oliver notched an arrow and Bindarra screamed, “No, no, no, please!”

“Tell me!” 

“I don’t know nothin’!” Bindarra shouted. Oliver let the arrow loose, right into the man’s thigh. Bindarra cried out, arching up to grab it, but Oliver didn’t let him. He grabbed the front of his cheap, sweat-stained jacket and yanked him up to get in the man’s face. Fear was the only thing Bindarra knew as clammy, blood-stained hands flapped at the Arrow’s chest and shoulders with ragged, “Stop, stop, please!”

Oliver didn’t feel any of it.

“What are you transporting?”

“I’m just the driver,” Bindarra whimpered. A blood bubble blew from his nose. “They don’t tell me nothin’-”

“Bullshit,” Oliver snapped. He shook him, hard. “What were you supposed to pick up tonight?” 

He knew, though, without Bindarra having to say anything. He knew exactly what he was there to pick up.

“You have a hidden compartment in your truck, don’t you?” Oliver spat. “A place to store the ‘shipments’ you transport.” He’d heard of trucks like that, with rooms hidden deep inside a trailer, usually behind a refrigeration unit, so well-hidden they could get past an x-ray machine. “ _Answer me_.”

When Bindarra didn’t answer right away, Oliver dropped him.

All the man’s weight fell on his already-swelling ankle. There was a vicious snap followed by a scream. The man struggled, but it only pulled more on his shattered ankle and the torn muscle in his thigh. Blood seeped out all over him, landing in wet spatters on the ground.

Oliver moved to grab him again.

“God, fuck this!” Bindarra wailed before shoving at Oliver. It did nothing but send him slamming back into the truck. “You should be thanking me, you fucker! We’re helping you!”

Oliver went still. 

“You and your Robin Hood bullshit,” Bindarra continued. “You wanna hurt the one-percenters, huh, bring ‘em to their knees? That’s what we’re doing taking that blonde bitch.”

The world closed in on Oliver in a deafening rush.

Just as quickly, it exploded.

Oliver moved so fast and without a thought that all he knew was one second he was standing before Bindarra, and the next his bow clattered to the ground as he grabbed the front of his piss-riddled jacket. Oliver shoved the piece of shit sideways up against the trailer so hard it shook.

“What did you just say?” he snarled. Oliver slammed him against the trailer again. “Answer me!”

“I-I was supposed to pick up that blonde that works for that Queen guy,” he broke out in a rush, “but something went wrong and they called off the job-”

“Who called it off?” Oliver demanded. “ _Who_?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I swear! B-but it helps you, right? You go after the big guys, and she works for one of ‘em. We’re helping you! I’m helping you!”

That someone like this man thought he was _helping_ the Arrow? 

_By kidnapping Felicity._

His world turned inside out.

Claws dug into his stomach.

Fury rushed up his throat.

Oliver punched him. Something broke under his fist, but it didn’t register, nor did Bindarra’s screams. Oliver hit him again, as hard as he could, before dropping him. Something new cracked in Bindarra’s ankle. His scream cut off so abruptly the echo lingered as Bindarra gasped for air, his mouth gaping wildly. Oliver knew there had to be spots dancing over the man’s vision, that he was probably about to pass out from the pain.

Not yet.

Oliver yanked the whimpering man up again and got in his face, so close Bindarra could see his eyes. 

But it wasn’t Oliver Queen he saw. 

It was the Arrow. 

It was the Bratva Captain who had thrived in one of the deadliest mobs in the world.

The man quaked with terror, gasping, fresh blood and terror on his breath.

“Where were you taking her?”

“I don’t know.” When Oliver pulled his arm back, Bindarra shouted, “I don’t know, I swear! The bald guy gives me the address. It’s pre-programmed into a burner. I follow it, I leave the truck, and when I come back a few hours later, the shit’s gone. It’s different every time. I don’t know where she’s going, I swear!”

The bald guy.

Oliver regretted leaving Alexi with breath in his lungs.

“If you know so little,” Oliver growled, “then how do you know she’s blonde?”

Bindarra flinched, and Oliver almost broke him into a thousand pieces right there.

Instead, he dropped him again.

Another scream ripped through the night air. It didn’t put a dent in the screaming inside Oliver’s head, though. He started searching the man’s pockets. A wallet fell to the ground, a second phone, a set of keys. The longer it took, the more desperate his search became… 

Until he found it.

A picture tucked in a secret pocket sewn into the hem of his jacket.

It was Felicity, his Felicity.

But it wasn’t the picture Alexi had given him. 

She was in her pajamas, in the middle of her living room, rolling out a yoga mat, a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth. She was the picture of comfort and ignorance, not knowing that someone was spying on her. His hand shook so badly he nearly crumpled the picture to keep it steady. The shot was from a distance, from at the top of her street, surely. She’d slanted her blinds to give the illusion of privacy, but the angle of the camera had caught everything as if they were wide open.

Someone had stalked after her in the dark. Had watched her from the shadows.

Darkness edged Oliver’s world, and he fell deadly still, zeroing his eyes in on his prey.

Sweaty fear saturated the air.

“I didn’t take that,” Bindarra told him, shaking his head frantically. “I didn’t do that.”

“Then where did you get it?” Oliver yanked him up again. “Who gave this to you?”

“A-another guy. I-I don’t know who he was. I don’t, I don’t! He was with the bald guy, he gave me a package, said I was s’posed to hand it over when I left the truck. There was a whole folder of ‘em in it, okay? It wasn’t me!”

All the folders he’d seen at the Russian garage. He’d known then just as much as he knew now what they contained. It would have shown his hand, but fuck that, he should have destroyed them all. And then he should have taken care of Alexi and his bastard mechanic. 

Had Felicity’s folder been there?

_A whole folder of ‘em._

“You looked at it,” Oliver surmised, quietly, softly, but the violence in his voice rang loud and clear. 

What else was in there? What other photos? What else had he taken?

Buzzing filled his ears. 

Red colored his vision. 

“No, wait,” Bindarra said, connecting the dots. “I didn’t… I wasn’t trying anything, man. I was curious, okay, and she’s hot! You can’t blame me! I didn’t-”

Oliver punched him in the mouth, once, twice, silencing him before he could get another word out. His lips split, blood coating Oliver’s glove, but it wasn’t enough. Oliver slammed him back against the metal trailer, so hard his head bounced off it like rubber. He’d kept a picture of Felicity. _His_ Felicity. He’d seen her at her most vulnerable, knew things he had no business knowing. This stranger. This piece of shit hired to smuggle her and god only knew how many others in his truck to who the hell knew where.

The need to break him until only dust remained hit Oliver so hard that he was already rearing back, ready to shove his fist through Bindarra’s face. 

But he didn’t.

Not yet.

“Where’s the folder?” Oliver demanded. Fresh blood flowed from Bindarra’s mouth as his eyes fluttered. Oliver shook him. “ _Where is the folder_?”

“I-in the truck, it’s in the truck,” Bindarra gurgled. “Please-”

Oliver dropped him. His weight on his ankle elicited a screaming whimper as he rattled against the trailer’s side, but Oliver was already turning to the cab. He ripped the door open, a light popping on, illuminating the small area in dull yellow. 

He tore the space apart before he found it.

Tucked under a hidden flap in the passenger door was a wrinkled envelope. 

He would have looked right past it if he hadn’t known for sure it was in there. Oliver ripped the shitty vinyl away and yanked it out, damn near shredding the envelope to get to the folder within. On the surface, it looked exactly like the other folders, except this one was much thicker. 

And written in a messy scrawl on the tab was _‘Smoak, Felicity Megan.’_

Fingers shaking, he flipped it open.

All the air left his body as he stared at the contents. 

Movement caught his eye.

Oliver looked up through the windshield just in time for the gunshots to register. 

A volley of bullets cut through the thick glass, shattering it as Oliver dove to the side. Glass exploded everywhere, cotton, wood, and plastic debris showering the cab.

With a snarl, Oliver looked back at Bindarra.

The bastard had the phone that had fallen from his pocket in his hand. Under the roar of bullets turning the rig into swiss cheese, his shouts echoed - encouragement to kill the Arrow, rage that it was at the expense of his truck, curses as he tried to get free.

Shoving the folder inside his jacket, Oliver glared at where his bow still laid on the ground outside, before grabbing an exploding arrow from his quiver. He clicked a button, jammed it in the steering wheel, and dove out. Landing in a roll, he snatched his bow, found his feet, spun with another arrow already in-hand, and fired at the line of men that’d appeared. The arrow hit the ground before them with a starburst, and the shock gave him time to run to meet his attackers.

As a fireball erupted out of the cab, Oliver dove into the fray. 

*

Felicity stared at the clothes sprawled across the cot.

She had meant to organize them. Or at the very least get everything out of the duffle bags so they wouldn’t get more wrinkled. Especially after what happened with Isabel. Felicity needed to be on her game. Put her best foot forward. 

And that started with organizing.

She picked up a blouse. A deep crease ran across the center. With shaky hands, she started smoothing it out.

Camille would never wear clothes again.

The thought was a white hot blade slicing into her chest, and she choked on it. It kept hitting her in waves, and each one was worse than the last. Felicity tangled her fingers in the shirt as her hands flew to her chest, her nails digging in to keep everything from spilling out. 

It didn’t work. 

Camille would never wear those flowery tanks she loved, or the heeled sandals. She would never get the chance to drink coffee again, or smile, or stub her toe on something. They had stolen her life, destroyed it-

Felicity’s face twisted in a silent sob.

And Oliver had been there. 

She still couldn’t wrap her mind around that. He had somehow been part of the group that had taken her, had been there when she did whatever they made her do.

_“You keep referring to the Bratva as if they aren’t right here in the room with you.”_

Felicity shook her head with a breathless, “No.”

Not the man who’d turned the color of ash, who had vomited when he saw Camille’s picture, who had lost it at her suggestion, so angry that for a second she thought he was going to destroy his office.

No, that wasn’t the man she had volunteered to go to the gala with.

God, the gala.

She had never seen him so scared, not like he had been in that moment.

It had just come out after that call. Despite the reality of what happened to Camille, despite all her worst assumptions coming true, despite the cloying fear as she listened to that strange man talk about her as if he knew her, she said she was going. To a party that was a front for the Russian mafia, a place she had absolutely no business being. They had already picked up on her being too invested somehow, and here she was, injecting herself right in the middle of all of it.

It was unbelievably stupid.

But it was also incredibly simple.

To get the information they needed, they wanted her there. So she would be there.

With the man who had claimed her as his.

Felicity’s heart flipped wildly as a rush of nerves twisted her stomach.

Oliver had _claimed_ her. It should scare her. The very idea of it should terrify her, because that was what the Bratva did, wasn’t it? They claimed people. Like Camille, like so many others, claiming them as their own as if they were nothing more than property, using them, selling them… 

But not Oliver.

_“I will kill to protect what is mine. And you are mine, Felicity.”_

The intensity of those words hit her all over again, and she closed her eyes. She still felt the veracity of them in her bones. In that split second, she’d been back at the foundry, back in his arms, feeling the proof of those words digging into her, his demanding lips, his hands everywhere, hot and fevered and matching the inferno that burned inside her. And in that same second, she swore he saw it, swore he felt it right along with her.

Then he’d shut down.

Again.

_“You have no idea - no idea - what I’ve done.”_

An icy shiver cut down her spine, and she hugged herself. 

He was right. She didn’t know everything he had done. She didn’t even know a fraction. She knew there were other facets to him, other sides, other faces, other masks that she couldn’t fathom existing. He had more secrets than anyone she’d ever met, hid behind more lies, lived so many falsehoods in order to do what he did. 

And somewhere in there was the mask of someone involved with the Bratva, involved in the horrific things they took pride in, involved in the terrible things that had happened to Camille.

Her throat ached with unspent tears.

But that wasn’t what scared her. His pain scared her. No, it terrified her. The guilt she had seen in his eyes, the horror, the way he’d fallen apart, and how quickly.

She should have done everything in her power to help him, but she’d made it worse. She had pushed him, and in the process she’d pushed him away as readily as he had wanted her to since the second all this came up.

“God, Oliver,” she breathed, squeezing her eyes shut. 

_Come back._

But it was just her.

Her and her clothes.

Felicity forced her eyes open with a shaky breath. Tossing the blouse on the cot, she wiped her cheeks with an uneven, “Whew,” before pushing her hands into her drying hair. The still-damp strands tangled around her fingers and she huffed before shoving it all up into a messy ponytail. 

Then she focused on the messy piles before her. On what she could control right now. 

Organize.

Fold.

Coordinate.

He would be back. And they would talk. They would figure this out-

Her phone vibrated in her back pocket. 

_Oliver?_

Felicity snagged it out with bated breath, only to exhale loudly when she saw it was her mom calling. Again. Heart sinking, she shoved it back into her pocket. Felicity swore the woman had an antenna built in her head that told her exactly when to call, just as something crazy was happening. As if Felicity needed more crazy added to the pile right now. Or ever.

No, what she needed right now was to organize.

To fold. 

To put together outfits, so she didn’t have to worry later.

Felicity picked up a dress and shook it out. It was her red-orange one, with the triangle cutout, one of her favorites. 

The familiar motions settled her. 

Some hair slipped free and tickled her temple. 

Had Diggle grabbed her brush?

Camille would never brush her hair again.

The same knife cut into her, and her eyes burned. 

Felicity pushed through it, instead concentrating on folding the dress. She tried to control her breathing. She pressed her lips together until they hurt.

But the sob still escaped.

She had failed her. She had failed Mrs. Fernandes. 

The weight of it all - of everything she had learned today, of her world turning inside out, of Oliver running away, his pain so harsh it sliced into her as if it were her own - it all bore down on her. It pressed down on her shoulders, on her chest, so heavy she suddenly couldn’t breathe. 

Felicity clutched the dress to her chest, digging her nails in again, trying to fight the onslaught. But it was too much. It was all too much… 

The hair on the back of her neck rose. 

She looked up. 

The shadows of the room had lengthened. It shouldn’t be possible. The lights were stationary, and no natural light shined in the warehouse basement. But the gloom was heavier, filling the space with a gravity that hadn’t been there before. 

The dress slipped from her fingers.

She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.

Felicity turned. 

A faint outline greeted her. 

For a second, she wasn’t sure she saw anything, but the longer she stared, the more it took form. Broad shoulders, a bowed head covered in a hood, arms lowered, a bow in one hand, the hint of a quiver. She didn’t need to see all that, though, to know that it was him. 

She just knew.

“Oliver,” she choked out before launching herself at him.

His shock was tangible as their chests collided with a solid thud. Her arms wound around his neck, her leg wrapping around his. She couldn’t make sense of the smells flooding her nose - smoke, charred wood and leather - but she didn’t try. Because he was here. He was a solid mass of muscle that she scrambled to hold on to, even though he didn’t move. It didn’t deter her. It didn’t even occur to her this was foolish, that any sane person would tell her that after everything he’d told her, he was the last person she should run to. 

But he was the only person she wanted to run to.

Felicity lost her leverage, sliding down his body, and she clung to him with a whimper.

Just when her feet brushed the floor, his free arm banded around her, lifting her up. His bow hit the ground with a clatter, and then he swept her up in a bone-crushing hug that pushed all the air out of her lungs.

A sob ripped out of her as she held him back just as tight, squeezing her eyes shut when he shuddered, a thick exhale deflating his chest. 

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” she admitted in a broken whisper.

For the longest moment he did nothing before he finally said, “I shouldn’t have.”

Oliver let her go and stepped back into the shadows. 

“No. Don’t. _Please_.” She reached for his hand, but he dodged her. Felicity growled as a tear slipped down her cheek. She angrily brushed it away. “Damn it, Oliver. What do you want? You want me to condemn you? I can’t.” He flinched. “I _can’t_. Everything you told, everything that happened… I tried, but I couldn’t do it. Because there is one thing that hasn’t changed, that won’t ever change - you are a good man.”

Oliver cursed and jerked away from her.

But it was true.

She might not know all of him, she might not see all of him, but it didn’t matter.

Felicity followed him into the dark.

He stumbled back, but she matched his steps until he ran into a stack of crates.

She pushed his hood back.

Oliver recoiled. There was just enough light for her to see his face twist as he tried to turn away from her. She cupped his face, forcing him to look at her. He slammed his eyes shut, his jaw turning to steel. Skin hot with remnant exertion, sticky with old sweat and slick grease paint, he just stood there.

Waiting for the words he would never hear from her.

“Oliver…”

“Felicity, you don’t-”

“It doesn’t matter,” she interrupted. Her heart ached when he shook his head. “You’re still Oliver. _My_ Oliver.”

His eyes flew open, and the anguish there sliced her heart to ribbons. He shuddered, and she knew he was two seconds away from pulling out of her grasp, from escaping again. But despite that, his gaze still clung to hers… 

Like he didn’t want to run.

She held onto that, staring into him, willing him to hear her.

“I know you,” Felicity told him. “You are the man who always does what he believes is right. Who always gets back up. Who always puts everyone else before him. You are a good man, Oliver. And you are the man I trust with my life. Nothing will change that. _Nothing_. Not whatever happens today, tomorrow, or next week. Not what happened in the past, or what will happen at the gala.”

Oliver groaned. “Felicity-”

“You already proved it,” she said, talking over him, “when you claimed me.”

“ _No_ ,” he breathed, his voice turning harsh. “I claimed you knowing full well what that meant to the Bratva. I said you belong to me, Felicity. Not as a person, but as a thing. That’s the language they know, and that’s what I used. How am I any better when that’s my first reaction? When that was all I cared about? There were so many other folders, so many other people, and the lists you found… And still all I could think about was making sure nothing happened to _you_. What does that say about me?”

“That you wanted to protect me.”

“No.” Oliver grabbed her face. “It says I’m willing to be like them to get what I want.” His voice cracked. “What I need. And that I will do anything to keep it that way.”

“Maybe,” Felicity whispered. “But that doesn’t change how I feel about you, Oliver. Or that I trust you. You have earned that from me. Nothing you do will change that.”

A shudder wracked his frame. 

“I trust you,” she repeated.

His face crumpled. “Felicity…”

“I trust you.”

He fell into her and she caught him. 

Oliver wrapped her up, burying his face in her neck. His breaths were hot and damp against her throat as his stubble scraped her sensitive skin. She whimpered and hugged him back, as hard as she could, pushing one hand into his sweaty hair, grounding him to her. His grip tightened, shifting and adjusting, pulling her closer, so tight it hurt. 

But she needed it just as much, needed him to know she wasn’t going anywhere… 

And she needed to know he wasn’t either.

As if he knew that, their embrace changed, and suddenly he was the one holding her up. His hands swept over her back, one cupping the back of her neck, the other slipping down, his gloved fingers biting into the top of her jeans, cocooning her. She collapsed against him with a needy sigh of relief. He nuzzled the underside of her jaw and Felicity pressed her face into his hair, her mouth ghosting over his ear. His cheek brushed hers, and she marveled at how his stubble was both soft and sharp.

He pressed his lips to her cheek. He trembled. 

Without thinking, she kissed his jaw.

His breath caught, and she paused.

When he didn’t do anything else, she kissed him again.

The heat they’d stumbled into that first night roared to life. 

Breaths uneven, their caresses turning heavy, they curled into each other. She stole another kiss to his cheek before he shifted so his lips brushed over her nose. A familiar, needy ache blossomed inside her. One only he could assuage. She pushed up onto her toes, pressing closer, the corner of her mouth touching his. His hand flattened over her lower back, yanking her further into him.

He turned, just enough for his lips to touch hers.

It was so soft, so gentle, so quiet. And then a wildfire erupted as they both opened, tasting each other again, _finally_ -

Buzzing erupted from her back pocket.

They broke apart with ragged pants. But they didn’t let go. Felicity’s lungs felt ready to burst, but not from lack of oxygen. From a lack of him. His fingers gripped her rhythmically, his body hard and hot against hers, fitting so perfectly against the softer lines of her own.

“Oliver…”

With a needy sound, he kissed her again. His tongue pressed to her lips, begging entrance she readily granted.

 _Yes, yes, yes_ \- 

Her pocket buzzed again.

“No,” she breathed, and she swore she felt Oliver smiling, but when he let her go, all she saw were his hooded eyes, his parted lips, wet from their kiss.

Another buzz.

He let her go.

With a huff, she snatched the phone from her pocket. The glare off the phone shocked her eyes. She grimaced before making a face when she saw it was her mom again. She quickly silenced it and shoved it back into her pocket. 

“Everything okay?”

His gravelly voice slipped over her in a crawl that had her shivering.

“Yeah,” Felicity replied. “I’m sure it is.”

Her eyes slowly adjusted again. The look on his face hadn’t changed. Her heart tripped, and she just barely caught her breath. Felicity swallowed hard, unsure of what was happening, or how she was still standing after the emotional whiplash she’d been through today. But she was. Because of him. Because of this, whatever this was.

Eyes never wavering, Oliver tugged off a glove and lifted his hand to her cheek. 

His thumb brushed over her cheekbone, then he cupped her jaw. His thumb ghosted over her lips. The air thickened, and Felicity held her breath, waiting…

Then he stiffened. 

She watched the storm grow in his eyes and she grabbed his arm with a tremulous, “Oliver?”

The darkness was back, and it cast a shadow over everything once more, twisting his brow, darkening the lines of his face. But she still saw _him_. The man who had just fallen into her arms, who had kissed her with such unbelievable tenderness.

She clung to that, even when he took his hand back, even when his face blanked.

“I need to show you something.”

Felicity nodded. “Okay. What?”

“A folder.” 

“A folder?” Her phone buzzed, shattering the moment again. Felicity jumped. “Oh my god, seriously-” Oliver stepped back as she grabbed it back out of her pocket. She didn’t even look, silencing it quickly before grasping his arm. “Wait, what did you-”

“Take your call,” he said gently. “I need to change, anyway.” 

“Oh. Right. Okay.”

Neither of them moved.

“Felicity…”

Oliver grabbed her hand. His skin was warm and callused, and her fingers naturally curled into his as he opened his mouth. But all that came out was a soft sigh. His eyes dropped to where their fingers tangled.

They both slowly moved so their hands laced together.

When his gaze rose to hers again, she did what felt as natural as breathing.

Felicity pushed up onto her toes and kissed him - soft, chaste, gentle - before falling back.

His eyes stayed closed for a beat, and he didn’t move save to cling to her hand. When their eyes finally met, an unfathomable depth stared at her. 

So of course her phone started ringing.

“Oh my god,” Felicity breathed.

His lips twitched, and with a brief nod, he melted back into the shadows. She didn’t let him go until she had to, and even then she felt the burn of his eyes on her. 

She turned to give him privacy, but she didn’t move right away.

In fact, she almost turned back around-

Her phone buzzed again.

With a brisk, “Oh my god,” Felicity snatched her phone out and stalked away, swiping to accept the call. “Mom! Why are you blowing up my phone-”

“Oh, Felicity, finally! Why haven’t you been picking up?”

Donna Smoak’s voice simultaneously grated on Felicity’s nerves and felt like coming home.

And just like that, all the wind left her sails.

“I… I’ve been busy,” she replied lamely. She wasn’t close with her mother, by any means, but there was not being close, and then there was avoiding. Felicity shoved her hand under her glasses to rub her eyes as guilt burned through her. “Really busy. Just… with… work stuff. Listen, Mom, now isn’t the best time.”

“I’ve been calling you for days.”

Felicity sighed, her shoulders drooping. 

Her feet dragged as she headed to the main floor.

“Yeah, I know, I’m sorry. It’s been…” She waved her hand, but nothing came out. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay, that’s all. You’re okay, right? Everything’s all right?”

“Everything’s fine.” As fine as she wanted her mother to believe. Felicity frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Oh yes, yes, I’m fine. Just fine. I’m sorry, I just… I wanted to hear your voice, that’s all.” Donna took a deep breath. “You’d tell me, though, right, if something was wrong?”

Felicity stopped walking. 

The training dummy loomed next to her. She absently stared at the broken arm she’d run into, at the faint shade of red coloring it as apprehension twisted her stomach. There were coincidences, and then there were _coincidences_. 

A flash of all the horrific things Oliver had said earlier hit her and she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Why are you asking me that?” Felicity asked. “Has something happened, or-”

“Oh no, it’s fine, it’s fine, I’m fine. I just wanted to hear your voice, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

“Mom.”

“Well, there is one thing.”

A spike of anxiety shattered her chest plate and Felicity couldn’t do anything to mask the desperate croak in her voice as she asked, “What? What is it?”

“Oh, it’s… you know what, it’s silly, you don’t need to worry-”

“ _Mom_.”

Felicity didn’t realize she had yelled until Diggle materialized in front of her, and then a familiar hand landed on her shoulder. Oliver turned her around to him. His Arrow suit gone, the jeans and Henley that replaced it gave her more comfort than was entirely logical. Her hand flew out to grasp his shirt in a tight fist as she listened to her mom hem and haw. 

“You haven’t… Oh, this is just… This is just silly, but… You haven’t gotten any strange calls, have you? From anyone who, uh…” Donna let out a nervous laugh. “You know what, nevermind, forget I asked-”

“ _Mom_.”

She sighed, paused… and Felicity was ready to scream when she finally spoke.

“You haven’t by chance met any Russians, have you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
>  **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


	10. Wednesday 9 p.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity's world is turned upside down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It hit me the other day that I'm posting this fic a year post-Arrow, after years of talking about it, after not being able to write it for the longest time, and you're all still here with me. That is huge. And it means the damn world to me. Thank you.

  
(71 hours before the gala)

_… reaching out for something you've got to feel, while clutching to what you had thought was real…_

_“You haven’t by chance met any Russians, have you?”_   


The words rang in her head, bleeding together until they were nothing but static. White, hot static that stroked down the back of her neck as the floor dropped out from under her.

Was someone there? Had someone contacted her, or been following her? Was she hurt, or had they taken her? Where was she? Every question whipped around her, faster and faster, until she couldn’t concentrate on just one. Just _one_ needed to make sense. That’s all she needed. Just one.

“Wh… what?” Felicity managed in a ragged whisper.

Her mother answered, but it got lost in the blood crashing through her ears. Her throat closed. Pain spiked her chest. 

There were boxes, very neat boxes where everything had its place. This entire situation had a box. Everything with Oliver had a box. Everything with Queen Consolidated, with her mother, with Cooper, with hacking. All of it had a box. As long as the boxes didn’t blur, everything would be okay.

But now Donna was asking about Russians and boxes were breaking and she couldn’t breathe.

“Felicity.”

 _Oliver_.

She blinked and suddenly he was there. She latched onto his gaze. He was the only thing in the room not spinning and the second her eyes found his, the rest of it faded into the background. She took a breath, and then another. 

“What is it?” he asked.

“I… I don’t know.” Her voice sounded far away, disconnected.

_“You haven’t by chance met any Russians, have you?”_

It had been fine when it was just her. Felicity could handle that, because she was the only one at risk. It was her risk. But not if it involved Donna. All the horrific things she’d learned about human trafficking flooded her. But it was no longer strangers she saw - it was her mother, her body broken, her glittery nails cracked, her blood staining the ground. 

Her Bratva box peeled like a rotten banana and it spilled out everywhere.

“Felicity. Look at me.”

A warm hand cupped her cheek.

Reeling, Felicity grabbed onto his Henley again. The heat from his chest seeped into her fingers. It anchored her. She stepped closer into the protective realm of Oliver’s arms, breathing him in. Earthy, rain-soaked musk with leather and something still a little smoky filled her nose.

She was okay. 

“What’s wrong?”

“My mom,” Felicity said. It felt like years had passed, but it’d only been seconds. “She…”

The words froze on her tongue as a different brand of panic hit her. Donna’s words ran circles in her head, but they had nothing on the certainty that this would drive him over the edge. She had just pulled him back from a darkness she couldn’t hope to fathom. 

She couldn’t bring herself to push him back into it.

“What?” Oliver prompted, eyes searching hers. “Felicity?”

“Felicity?” Donna repeated, her voice tiny and frantic. “Are you there?”

With a start, Felicity realized she’d let her arm drop. 

“Yes,” she replied, putting the phone back to her ear. “Yes. I’m here.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Her voice shook, but she ignored it, giving Oliver a smile she hoped wasn’t as fragile as it felt. He didn’t move, so she must’ve failed. Or maybe it was because she still held onto his shirt with a death grip. Felicity abruptly let go and stepped back, forcing Oliver’s arms to release her. “Sorry,” Felicity said, and she wasn’t sure if she was talking to her mother or Oliver. “I was…”

“What is it?” Donna pressed, her voice rising. “Is everything alright? Are you okay?”

“Yes, it’s fine, I’m…” Felicity closed her eyes and when she opened them again, she tried another smile. “I’m fine.”

Concern furrowed his brow, and even though he didn’t push, she knew he wanted to know what was wrong. And he should know. Because her mother was asking about Russians, and that was something to know.

But when she opened her mouth, the words didn’t come out.

“I didn’t mean to catch you off guard, honey,” Donna said. “I’m glad you’re okay. I just wanted to check in on you.”

“By asking me _that_?” 

“Oh, you know me - so overdramatic. It’s nothing.”

“That’s a pretty specific sort of nothing, Mom,” Felicity replied. Oliver narrowed his eyes, and she had to turn away from him. “Why would you ask me about… that specific sort of nothing?”

“Oh gosh, I’ve missed talking to you, hon.”

“Memory lane later, Mom.”

“It’s really not a big deal, I just… I saw some news about how things are in Starling City, and so naturally my first thought was of you.”

“And you thought leading with that was the best way to ask how I was doing?”

“I was worried, okay?” Donna made an exasperated noise. It sounded much more like the mother Felicity knew, and she relaxed. “I keep hearing all these horror stories about what’s happening there, especially since those scary earthquakes, and I know you live close to those Glades, or whatever they’re called, and then there’s that crazy man flying around shooting arrows at everyone.”

Felicity glanced at Oliver. He still watched her.

“You don’t call me anymore, Felicity,” Donna continued. “And when I do call, you avoid me. Or send a text saying ‘hi, can’t talk,’ knowing full well that me and texting don’t mesh.”

“I just…” The guilt was back. Felicity shoved her palm into her forehead. “I’ve been busy.”

“You know, there’s busy and then there’s avoiding.”

“Or there’s just being busy, Mom, okay? I’ve just been… busy.”

Donna paused, and then she sighed. “I didn’t call to argue, honey.”

Felicity let out a heavy sigh all her own and closed her eyes. This right here was exactly why she didn’t talk to her mother. Any and every conversation somehow dissolved into awkward silence. They’d never been good at communication, especially after her father left. Felicity just didn’t know how to connect with her. She never had. So, yeah, avoiding her calls was something she’d gotten great at.

Unless her mother wanted to talk to her about Russians.

Her heart twisted, and she curled her fingers into her chest.

Oliver touched her shoulder with a murmured, “Felicity, talk to me.”

Before she could say anything, Donna asked, “Are you at the office?” 

“Uh… yeah.” In a certain way, she _was_ at the office. “Yeah, I’m always here. At the office. Always so much to do here, you know. Something always coming up.”

“I’ve noticed that,” Donna hummed. “Something’s always coming up with you. And your boss.”

“What?”

“Honey, I’ve seen pictures of Oliver Queen. I know he probably looks just as good out of those suits as he does in them.”

Felicity’s jaw dropped as heat scorched her cheeks. It didn’t help that Oliver’s lips ticked up. Because he’d heard her. Mortification nearly bowled her over, especially when he raised an eyebrow. As if he were waiting for what she was going to say. 

“I would not know about that,” Felicity said, loud and clear, staring right at him.

Oliver rolled his lips together to keep from smiling. She shoved at his arm, and he huffed out a chuckle. When she glared at him, he put a hand up in silent placation. But he still looked amused. Too amused, she thought, so much that for a second all the weight of everything disappeared.

Until she realized if he heard Donna now, he might hear something else. 

She froze, and she knew the second Oliver saw it because all the laughter drained away. 

Felicity forced herself to roll her eyes at her phone before pointing over her shoulder. “I’m gonna go take this over there. Mom-daughter talk, you know. Gotta get that juicy gossip. Which apparently revolves all around you today. You and an entire lack of clothes- He’s clothed. You’re clothed. He’s not shirtless. Oh… my god. I’ll be… over there, just… Yeah.”

Oliver’s face softened.

Well, at least she could count on her babbles to save the day.

Felicity darted away, ducking into the mini-maze of her servers. She slipped behind the farthest one she could find and fell against it, squeezing her eyes shut. Only she would get flustered talking about him being shirtless considering everything that had happened.

As if on cue, Donna said, “I’m just saying.”

“It’s not like that,” Felicity groaned. Except it was? Or wasn’t it? Oh boy, that was a rabbit hole she really could not go down right now. “It’s just not like that, okay? It doesn’t matter how many people think so, or what people say around the watercooler, or why the lady at the Gazette felt the need to ask _that_ question about why Oliver Queen’s executive assistant joined him in…”

_Oh._

Felicity straightened as it all came together.

And then she smacked herself in the forehead.

“You joined Oliver where?” Donna asked in a saucy tone. A second ago, it would’ve sent Felicity through the roof, but now it barely registered.

“Glenna,” she blurted. 

“What?” Donna asked.

“You told me you weren’t going to see that psychic anymore, Mom.” 

“I haven’t… Why? Is there something she’s going to tell me?” Donna teased. “A prediction about a future grandchild, perhaps?”

“Oh my god, Mom, no. About me being in Russia.”

The silence on the other end of the phone seemed to echo. “What?”

“I went to Russia with Oliver a couple of weeks ago,” Felicity explained. She sagged against the server. “Oh my god, that makes so much more sense. Queen Consolidated has subsidiaries out there that Oliver had to check on, and it turned into a big deal because his, uh… business partner…” She grimaced at the foul taste in her mouth. “She came along and it turned into a big to-do about the company. A reporter for the Gazette came to the office to talk to Oliver, except she mostly talked to me, and wow, this explains so much.”

“Y-you were in Russia?”

“You do realize that’s how your supposed psychic gets all her information, right?” Felicity asked. “That woman is a quack, and I wish you would stop going to her. Do you remember that red bath crap she talked about when I was in Boston? And it was actually the Harvard lacrosse team in town for a match. And I know she reads the business pages. I’ve seen her stash. And I know she has alerts set up for all her ‘clients’ for stuff just like this.”

“Right,” Donna mumbled. “Glenna.” 

“Yes, Mom. Glenna.”

“Well, honey, how else am I going to know what’s coming up?” Donna offered a thin laugh that made Felicity frown. “So, you… you were in Russia. For work. With your boss. And his bodyguards.”

“Yeah. You know, usually I’m the one talking like that.” Her mother laughed again, and she sounded so much more like herself again that Felicity was positive she was imagining things. “And yes, I was there with Oliver and his bodyguard, John. We were only there for a few days.”

“Oh. Good. Okay. Good.”

“That’s where this is coming from, isn’t it? She read that article and asked if I’d met any Russians-”

A sharp inhale sounded.

Felicity’s head snapped up to see Oliver. 

Her heart slammed into the ground.

Gone was the man she had kissed a moment ago. No, that wasn’t right, she realized with a shaky gasp. He was still in there, even as he became something else. The darkness took over, his eyes narrowing, his nostrils flaring, his chest rising in barely controlled breaths.

“What?” The simple word was so deceivingly soft that it gave her chills. When she didn’t respond right away, he hissed, “ _Felicity_.”

“It’s not…” Lips numb, Felicity shook her head, fighting to speak. “It’s not what you think-”

Incredulity flared in his eyes and she watched them darken in a way she’d never seen before. Cold took over, almost reptilian when the light off her phone caught them, sucking it away as if nothing was there. They narrowed in a glare so fierce her stomach plummeted. 

“It’s not what I think?” he repeated slowly.

Felicity’s mouth worked soundlessly, and that was all he needed.

His muscles clenched, his chest expanding, his shoulders somehow growing twice in size.

All the peace she thought they’d reached back by the cot vanished.

“No.” Shaking her head, she reached for him. “Oliver-”

He turned without a word and stalked away.

Felicity stared after him, heartbeat wild and erratic, hands shaking. What had she done? She squeezed her eyes shut. How could she be so stupid? She’d been so caught up that she hadn’t thought twice, just blabbing. Like always.

“Damn it,” she whispered. “ _Damn it_.”

“Felicity?”

Donna’s tinny voice had Felicity yanking it back up to her ear with a sharp, “I have to go.”

“Is everything alright?”

Felicity screwed her eyes shut. “It… I… I just have to go. I’ll call you later.”

“Tomorrow?”

Hope colored her mother’s voice, and guilt stopped Felicity dead in her tracks. The immediate urge to say no and make vague plans opened her mouth, but the words didn’t come out. What if something had been wrong, if her mom had been in trouble, and Felicity had blown her off…

Before she could respond, though, a series of angry hisses reached her ears before what sounded like, “Okay, hey, Oliver-”

A loud slam echoed through the foundry.

“Mom, I’m sorry, I have to go,” Felicity rushed out. 

She didn’t wait to hear what Donna said before hanging up and vaulting out of the protective maze of servers. Heart pounding, sweaty palms making her phone slip in her hand, she rounded a corner.

Just as Oliver swept his arm across a table.

Felicity stopped mid-step as plastic and metal bounced around the room in a violent ricochet.

“What the hell?” she demanded. If the look he shot her was any sign, he didn’t like her tone. _Tough_. Felicity stalked up to him, kicking a plastic bottle out of the way. Cotton balls and gauze and a bottle of iodine littered the floor, and it just pissed her off more as she glared at him. “It’s not what you think.”

“Stop _saying_ that.” Oliver closed the few feet left between them, and the way he towered over her - him in boots, her in nothing but socks - only fueled her anger. “What exactly am I supposed to think?”

“I know how it sounds, okay!” Felicity threw her hands up, and he had to dodge back to avoid being hit. “That’s why I freaked out, but there is an explanation. She goes to a psychic-”

Oliver buried his face in his hands. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“We were in the Starling City Gazette. Do you remember that? Probably not because I was the one who did the interview for you, which is probably how my name got in there. It had your picture with Isabel, and it was all about the trip to Russia, and how it was a sign of how the economy is so much better off or whatever. This woman reads the papers religiously because she is a hack, and that is where she got it-”

“Got what?” Oliver interrupted. “What did she say, Felicity? _Exactly_ , what did she say exactly?”

She paused. “She asked if I’d met any Russians.”

Outrage contorted Oliver’s face as Diggle said, “That’s pretty specific, Felicity.”

“No, it isn’t,” she argued, spinning to Diggle. “And that’s my point. An article comes out about us going to Russia, so it stands to reason that I have met Russians. This is just a coincidence-”

“How can you say that?” Oliver asked. “After everything that’s happened, how can you say that?”

“Because it’s not me! This is not about me, Oliver, this is about you. I know you guys don’t think it has anything to do with the Arrow, and maybe it doesn’t, but maybe it does. Or maybe it is you, but not that you.” Felicity groaned at the nonsensical mess. “God, Oliver, think about it - the only thing that I have in common with the Russian mafia is you. And you clearly know them based on that call alone, based on you going to see them, talking to them, even knowing where to find them. Me? Nothing. Nada.”

“You really-”

“Zilch,” Felicity continued, voice rising. “I don’t fit into this equation, so the only logical explanation is this is about you.”

“Goddamn it!” 

Oliver spun to where he’d tossed his Arrow jacket into crumpled on a med cart and yanked out a manila folder from inside it. He came back and slammed it on the metal table he’d just cleared off. It landed with a heavy thud, the matted corners and dirt-smudged edges doing little to hide the bulky contents.

Felicity frowned. “What’s that?”

“It’s what I wanted to show you.” Oliver jabbed at the folder. “Open it.”

Foreboding filled her as she stared at the folder, before looking back to Oliver. Impassive, he stared right back, waiting. She glanced at Diggle, but the other man’s gaze darted between her, Oliver, and the folder with a furrowed brow.

“Open it, Felicity.”

“Fine.” Huffing, she shoved her phone in her pocket and flipped the folder open. “But I’m telling you…” 

For that blissful second, what she saw didn’t register. The folder faded into a whitewashed piece of nothing. Inconsequential. Meaningless. But then the words rushed into focus, reforming, snapping back into order. The single line at the top of the first page wrapped around her heart like a fist and squeezed. Hand shaking, her fingers hovered over the letters.

FELICITY MEGAN SMOAK

She shuffled it out of the way. The next page. The one after that.

Pages and pages and _pages_.

Her entire life summed up in black and white. 

Date of birth, social security number, blood type, addresses, phone numbers, places she’d worked, her salary, her schools, her credit score. Bank statements, work schedules, school transcripts, the make and model of her car, her application for her apartment, the specific layout for her unit. Maps filled in with different colors, representing different days, different routes she took, showing a pattern in her movements she hadn’t even known was there. People she associated with, including Oliver and Diggle, Mrs. Fernandes, all of them with notes in the margins, how they connected. Handwritten notes, lined paper clipped together, all of them covered in a blocky scrawl outlining what she did every day, who she talked to, where she went, how long she was there. God, there were even notes about what kind of coffee she drank, the food she ate, how much she exercised, when her last period was, who her doctors were and her last visits.

She shook her head. “I don’t…?” 

But it wasn’t about her, she thought. It wasn’t supposed to be about her. It wasn’t _her_.

Felicity kept shaking her head as tears blurred all the pages together. She closed her eyes, but all that did was send a tear plopping onto her glasses, and another down her cheek.

It landed on one paper, and the ink smeared.

She yanked her hand back.

“I found it tonight,” Oliver told her quietly. “A man the Bratva hired to transport you-”

“Transport me?” Felicity repeated, her voice raw, but the words didn’t sink in. Her breaths grew heavier, shorter, and they came out in ragged bursts, sawing in and out of her throat like glass. “Transport me, like… taking me to…” 

More tears flowed down her cheeks, and she started flipping through the folder wildly. Some of it spilled out, but she didn’t notice. She shuffled through the pages, looking for something - anything - that would tell her this wasn’t about her. That this wasn’t her life she was staring at. But it was. She was the one who bought celery and never ate it, who used that brand of tampons, who barely remembered to floss.

A date caught her eye.

It was from weeks ago.

Her stomach jackknifed so brutally she nearly doubled over.

The folder contents swam before her.

“How could I not know? How could I not know this was happening? How can some stranger know my dress size, the-the type of lotion I use, the…” Felicity turned the pages harder. “How could someone know this much about me? How could I not know that they know this much…”

“Felicity…”

Oliver moved to her side.

She jerked away with a harsh, “Don’t,” before flinging the folder away. 

Papers flew everywhere, notes, lists, maps…

And pictures that scattered all over the table and onto the floor.

Pictures of her.

Eating salad, drinking a water bottle, typing on her tablet as she walked, buying her caramel latte, talking on her phone, reading in the coffee shop. There were some at QC, taken through the glass walls of the office from a distance, from a building next door, or a couple blocks away. Her at her desk, talking to Oliver in his office, standing in the conference room, laughing with Diggle.

Most of them were from her apartment.

Felicity stared at herself sitting in her living room, watching TV, of her changing in her closet, hopping on one leg as she tugged a heel, one with her face buried in a bright blue towel, another removing her makeup, one of her fresh out of the shower, the side of her breast clearly visible in the shot, her hip, her legs, her back…

Her bathroom had no windows. 

They were from _inside_ her apartment.

Her world crumbled. 

Her throat squeezed shut. Her heart crashed into her ribs so hard it surely shattered the bone. Hot washed over her, then cold, blinding cold as the floor tilted under her. Water filled her ears, her pounding heart screaming, the noise taking over.

 _Drowning her_.

She thought she felt hard hands grab her shoulders… then her face… callused fingers brushing hair back, cupping her cheeks. 

Voices.

_“Damn it, Oliver, what the hell were you thinking just showing her that?”_

_“I wasn’t… I just needed her to understand. Felicity? Hey, I need you to breathe, okay. Fuck.”_

_“I’m pretty sure she understands now.”_

_“Just get me a goddamn chair.”_

_“Why would someone do this?”_

_“I don’t know.”_

_“This is too damn detailed for a simple recon. Why would they need this kind of information?”_

_“I don’t know.”_

_“We might need to consider her car’s bugged. They have every route mapped. What the hell is this, man?”_

_“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know.”_

The sensation of walls closing in on her had her gasping for air again.

 _Help_.

“Hey.”

A whisper.

It was so quiet, but it broke through the roar. 

The cadence, the timber, the weight of a voice she knew like her own pulled her to the surface.

Felicity blinked… and stared at a lone picture on the floor - her, wearing an old sports bra on her couch, watching Doctor Who after a failed attempt at exercising.

The deafening roar came back.

 _Oh god_.

A hand swept it away.

“Felicity.” The voice stampeded through her thoughts again, and then warm hands were on her face. Her eyes roved wildly until she latched onto stormy blue. _Oliver_. He crouched in front of her where she sat in a chair - when had that happened? She tried to say his name, but her lips trembled, ice cold. She sucked in a breath, but it felt like she’d swallowed a bag of razors, and it only got worse with the next one. She looked around, floundering - why couldn’t she breathe? She couldn’t _breathe_. He gripped her face tighter, shaking her slightly with a hard, “Felicity, look at me.”

Her eyes snapped to his. 

“Breathe.”

Her muscles relaxed enough for her to take a breath. 

A ghost of a smile pulled at his lips and she clung to it, to the sudden sensation of his thumbs smoothing over her cheeks. 

“Good. That’s good. Keep looking at me. Now take another breath for me, okay… easy…” She did, but it stuttered, and then her lungs closed again. Panic had her sucking in another breath too fast, but her throat seized, stopping it. Oliver snatched her hand and held it to his chest. “Just like me, Felicity. Breathe. There, just like that… breathe with me… in… out…”

It took an eternity, but her lungs finally expanded. Oxygen entered them in time with Oliver’s. Her face crumpled, a ragged sob tearing out in a breath she had to force out. Her other hand flew to his arm, to anchor herself more to him.

“I’ve got you,” he promised, and she believed him.

A long moment passed before Diggle murmured, “I’ve never seen her like this before.”

“She had a mild one earlier,” Oliver whispered, his face pinched. “I didn’t think…”

“I usually have benzos with me,” Felicity croaked. Relief crossed Oliver’s face, but then he frowned as her words sunk in. It reminded her she didn’t tell people these things. But the ability to care had evaporated. “I haven’t needed them for a while. Which is ironic considering how stress-inducing this job is.”

“Do you have some now?” Diggle asked.

“No.” Felicity shook her head and immediately regretted it. Her neck muscles felt like concrete, and the second she realized that, she felt the ache in the rest of her body, like someone had pulled her through a taffy machine. She winced, and it was only because of Oliver she didn’t fall over. “I-I haven’t gotten them refilled.”

“I’m sorry,” Oliver whispered. “I’m so sorry, Felicity, I wasn’t thinking.”

“You didn’t know,” she replied, her voice catching. Tears flooded her eyes again, and they burned the tender flesh around them. It hurt, and she whimpered, clawing at him, trying to pull him closer. He made a quiet shushing sound as he smoothed a hand over her hair. He meant to calm her, probably, but it only opened the floodgates further. She started shaking. “How could you know… if I didn’t know? God, how could I not know? They know so much about me… I didn’t… It wasn’t supposed to be me. It wasn’t _me_. But it is. It is me, and I didn’t know, I didn’t… Why me? What did I do?”

“You did nothing,” Oliver said in a thick voice. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Then why?” she asked. “Why are they doing this?”

“I…” He paused, pressed his lip together. Felicity searched his eyes, but all Oliver finally whispered was, “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.” He gripped her face tight. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

She knew that - in her bones, in her heart, in her soul.

Felicity surged forward, wrapping herself around him, burying her face in his neck. 

Oliver caught her. He leaned up onto one knee to get closer, folding her into his arms. He slid his fingers into her loose ponytail, cupping the back of her head as he whispered, “I’ve got you.” Her breath caught on a sob and she nodded. He pressed a soft kiss to her ear, and she burrowed in further, ignoring the painful press of her glasses into the bridge of her nose. 

She wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but it wasn’t long enough.

The painfully tense muscles in her back started hurting, though. 

She pulled back, reluctantly, barely biting back a groan as her stiff muscles shifted with her.

Oliver stayed right there. His eyes never left her face, and she flushed, because her cheeks felt sandblasted by tears. She wiped them gingerly, sniffling. When he brushed the tender skin with his thumbs, she sighed. Then his hands fell to her hips. He gripped her lightly and rolled the chair closer. Her knees hit his chest, and she grasped at his shoulders, her fingers curling under the collar of his Henley.

“You okay?” Oliver whispered.

Felicity pursed her lips as her eyes stung. No. No, she was not okay. Nothing was okay.

But here, with him… 

She was as close to okay as she could get right now.

“Yeah.” It was easier to say the next words with him so close. “They’ve been in my apartment.”

Oliver’s fingers dug into her. “Yeah.”

Anger exploded across his face. It sharpened his features, giving him a dangerous edge that was all Arrow. For the first time, she realized why the grease paint was all he really needed under the hood - his entire demeanor shifted, turning him into a predator, hiding him more effectively than any mask ever could.

“I’m going to find them,” Oliver vowed. “I will.”

The storm grew with a fervor that made her shiver, darkening his natural blue, turning it into midnight as the promise of violence crashed against everything in sight. 

Except for her.

Never her.

In his drive to push her away, all it had done was make her realize how much she trusted him with everything, with her life. She trusted him to make the right call, to do what he had to, to become the person who could hunt shadows at night, but to also always come back to the man she knew he was at his core. 

Felicity nodded. 

A throat cleared right next to them.

She jumped and whipped her head to look up at Diggle. He stared at them with raised brows. 

“Is there something I should know?” he asked.

“What?” Felicity blurted.

Diggle gave her a look that immediately made her feel a foot tall. Except she was so not ready for this conversation. At all. Because there was something. Maybe. Except there wasn’t, because she and Oliver hadn’t talked about it. No, they had just kissed, and argued, and kissed again, and…

Felicity didn’t know what to say. 

“Now’s not the time,” Oliver said as he stood. The spot where his hands had rested on her hips instantly chilled without his heat. She fought the urge to grab them back. Instead, she twisted her fingers together in her lap, ignoring Diggle’s gaze burning into the side of her head as Oliver said, “This is different. We need to figure out who’s been following her. And why-”

It should annoy her, she thought absently, that he was talking about her like she wasn’t there.

Instead, Felicity wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her arms.

Her phone vibrated, a quick burst that made her say, “Oh.”

She dug her phone out of her pocket and looked at the screen. Another text buzzed in and she let out a wet laugh at the two symbols - one per text. It would form a heart if her mother had any idea what she was doing.

“What is it?” Oliver’s fingers brushing the back of her neck. She shivered and glanced up at him. Only her eyes got caught on Diggle staring at Oliver’s hand with a frown.

“It’s, uh…” Felicity cleared her throat and showed them. “My mom is terrible at texting.”

“Is that how they found her?”

There was too much fog still in her head to make sense of Diggle’s question. “What?”

“Your mom asking about Russians can’t be a coincidence, Felicity,” Diggle said softly. Oliver tensed next to her, but Diggle kept going. “The Bratva obviously have been following you, and with your mom calling-”

“No,” Felicity interrupted. When both Diggle and Oliver frowned. “You don’t understand, my mom is not in my life. And even if she was, when I… After my dad left us, I took us completely off the grid. To find her, you have to literally go find her. Why would someone bother with that when there are people here I see way more often? You guys, even Nick at my coffee shop would be easier to get to, and I am over at…”

She stopped breathing.

“Felicity?” Diggle asked as Oliver said, “What, what is it?”

“Mrs. Fernandes,” she blurted, eyes flying to Oliver. Her voice rose as the words tumbled out of her. “I-I go over there all the time. I see her all the time. She brings me food. She’s been in my apartment. I see her literally every day, and if they have all of that, then they have to know about her. Oh god, what if they do something to her? What if they know she’s Camille’s mom?”

“Hey, easy,” Oliver tried, but she barely heard him.

“I have to go check on her, she needs to know…” Felicity spun the chair to her desk to grab her purse, but it wasn’t there. She looked around wildly, trying to remember where she’d put it, but it wasn’t anywhere. “I have to go. I need to make sure she’s okay. I need to go see her.”

“Felicity, no-”

Anger fired through her, and she shot up to her feet. Her legs felt like jelly, and she grabbed her chair to steady herself as she glared at Oliver. “Yes.”

“No,” he said so loud it echoed. “It’s not safe-”

“What about Mrs. Fernandes?” Felicity demanded. “What if she gets hurt because of me? What if something happens to her? Like Camille?”

She spun to go back to the cot - surely her purse was back there - but Oliver grabbed her elbow. “Felicity, hold on-” 

“No, Oliver, I need to check on her, I need to see her, to tell her… to tell her…” God, she couldn’t think. Her brain had turned into soup. “I don’t know what I need to tell her, but I know that scary people have been following me for god knows how long, which means they know about her. At least I know you can take care of yourself, that you-” She waved at Diggle. “Can take care of yourself, but what about her? She can’t! She’s already lost her daughter, Oliver, and if they do something to her…”

“I’ll go,” Oliver offered. “I’ll check on her, okay?”

“No,” Felicity snapped.

Oliver gritted his teeth, but his voice was calm as he said, “I’ll make sure she’s okay. I promise.”

“I need to _see_ her. I couldn’t… I didn’t see Camille, and I couldn’t stop her from disappearing.” When Oliver flinched, Felicity squeezed her eyes shut and groaned. “I’m not blaming you, I’m not, I’m just… What if someone else sees her, sees how much she looks like Camille? She looks so much like her mom. What if they see her and they do something to her because of that? What if they… Oh god. How am I going to tell her? We’ve been looking for so long and now I have to tell her that her daughter’s gone, how… how am I…?”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Oliver cupped her face, forcing her to look up at him. His eyes shined with unshed tears. They disappeared with a blink, only for quiet despair to replace them. “You won’t have to, okay? Not tonight.”

“But I have to, eventually-”

“I know,” Oliver whispered. The pain shone so brightly in his eyes it scorched her, the depth of it taking her breath away before it also disappeared. “But not tonight. Not right now. Okay? Not right now.”

“I… I…”

She had to, though. Except how could she be there for Mrs. Fernandes when she could barely stand by herself right now? It was still so fresh, and then there was Oliver’s role in it, but more than that, it was everything else happening at the same time. It wasn’t right or fair. 

Felicity groaned under her breath and dropped her forehead into her hand. 

“Okay?” Oliver asked, gentler, quieter.

Felicity finally nodded with a broken, “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Oliver returned the nod. “Okay.”

“But I need to see her,” Felicity repeated. Oliver’s face went flat, and she shook her head. “I have to, Oliver. I have to see her, to know she’s okay. I won’t be able to do anything else until I know she’s safe, because if she’s not, and it’s because of me-”

“Okay, alright,” Oliver interrupted. His thumbs brushed away tears she didn’t know had fallen. “We’ll go. We’ll go check on her.”

“Together.”

“Together.”

“Right now.”

“Yeah,” he agreed somberly. “Right now.”

He didn’t like it, she could tell that much, but she didn’t care. She had to do this.

“Okay,” Felicity whispered. She took a deep breath, and the oxygen flowing into her lungs only reminded her how tired she was. But she could sleep later. Steeling herself, she glanced at Diggle before looking back at Oliver. “Then let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I remember there being more resolution at the end of each chapter, but obviously I was deluding myself. I'm sorry I'm not more sorry.)
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
> **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


	11. Wednesday 10 p.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As their world spins further out of control, they lean on each other.

  
(70 hours before the gala)

_… exit light, enter night, take my hand…_

Oliver wanted to kill something.

The urge simmered just under the surface, sweeping over him in jarring intervals. One second he was fine, and the next his hands ached to break something. 

It was only years of control that kept him in his seat.

And her.

Oliver glanced at Felicity where she sat next to him in the parked Mercedes.

Where he was perfectly still, she was a mess of nerves. Her leg bounced, her hands twisting in her lap, leaving them red and agitated. She wouldn’t stop chewing on her bottom lip, leaving it puffy and raw, matching the tear-ravaged skin around her eyes.

Her gaze stayed glued on the apartment door straight ahead, waiting for Diggle to appear.

They sat at the top of the long street leading to Felicity’s complex. The plan was for Diggle to do a perimeter check, and then he’d knock on Mrs. Fernandes’ door to make sure she was okay. It wasn’t enough, not by a long shot, but it had to be for now. Felicity was still the target, and even sitting out here felt too open, asking for trouble, taking too much of a risk. But she had asked, and if it was her asking… 

Unless she wanted to be the one to talk to her neighbor. 

It had taken all of Oliver’s self-control not to drive her right back to the foundry, and then a little more to explain why that was not fucking happening. Even Diggle approaching was a gamble if someone was watching her apartment.

Oliver glanced at his watch. 

Five minutes and thirty-four seconds had passed.

Where the hell was he? 

“Oh good,” Felicity breathed.

Diggle appeared around the corner of her building from where he’d parked Felicity’s car in the back. If there was a tracker on it, this would hopefully keep them occupied enough to stay away from Verdant. That it hadn’t even occurred to Oliver had him wanting to put his fist through the windshield. He wasn’t thinking straight, and he hadn’t been since the second Alexi had shown him Felicity’s picture.

They both watched Diggle walk towards Mrs. Fernandes’ door, casual, looking like any other resident.

Felicity dug her nails into the back of her hands.

Oliver reached over the console to cover them.

She instantly wound her fingers through his and anchored him to her lap. The way Diggle had looked at them earlier surfaced in Oliver’s mind, but he didn’t have the mental capacity for it. Not right now. All he knew was his touch calmed her, and that was more than enough for him.

That, and it centered him, driving him back from the edge he balanced so precariously on.

“She’ll be okay,” Oliver said.

“You don’t know that.”

No, he didn’t, but his gut told him Mrs. Fernandes wasn’t an avenue worth chasing. Despite not knowing until now how close Felicity was with her neighbors - really, it shouldn’t surprise him. People flocked to her light, himself included - he knew how little she was home. Mrs. Fernandes represented a small fraction of Felicity’s life.

The Bratva were better hunters than that.

Felicity gripped his hand tighter. “I just need to know she’s okay.”

“I know.”

They watched Diggle walk past Felicity’s door and stop at Mrs. Fernandes’s. He knocked.

“It’s always weird when someone knocks on your door this late at night,” she murmured. “Especially when you’re not expecting it. But she should recognize him. She knows you guys. Diggle’s met her a few times. And you guys drop me off all the time. I hope she opens the door. If she’s awake. She should be awake. She stays up reading those pulpy novels from the eighties, the ones that are super cringe-worthy, but annoyingly addictive. I got her a Kindle with a bunch of books, but that doesn’t stop her from going to the library, or buying used books. She has them all over her apartment. I keep telling her she’s like a library all her own, and if she wanted to, she could… _Oh_.”

The door opened.

Felicity collapsed into her seat with a relieved sigh as the sleepy outline of a woman appeared. She talked to Diggle for a moment, then leaned forward. 

The streetlight caught her face.

A startled gasp choked out of Oliver. 

He didn’t realize he was squeezing the hell out of Felicity’s hands until she spoke.

“She looks like her, doesn’t she?”

Mrs. Fernandes was the spitting image of her daughter, from the shape of her eyes to the way her lips curved. Rather, the way he imagined Camille’s would have curved before the hard life that ultimately ended in her death.

“Yeah,” was all he managed. He pulled away from Felicity to scrub his face, swallowing against the burning bile crawling up his throat. “I thought about telling someone… but I didn’t know who. She always said her family was dead, that she had nobody but the girls…”

“She was protecting her mother,” Felicity surmised. 

“Yeah, from me,” he said bitterly. “From the Bratva. And rightly so. Look what happened to her daughter.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“If she’d never met me, she’d be alive today. Intentions don’t mean shit when someone pays the price with their life. And that is exactly what she did.”

“You did not kill her.”

Oliver twisted to glare at her. “Felicity-”

“No, you would never put someone’s life in danger if you could help it,” she snapped. “Especially an innocent life. I will not blame you for something you didn’t do, so stop trying to make me believe what we both know is bullshit.”

Face pinched, skin flushed, Felicity turned back to Diggle and her neighbor.

Oliver glowered at her. As if she felt it, she looked back at him and made a ‘what are you going to do?’ face. Grinding his teeth, he fell back in his seat. He made tight fists, his thumb flicking at the edge of his bandaged cuts, his leg bouncing enough to make the car rock.

She was perfectly still.

Neither of them spoke as Diggle ended the conversation with Mrs. Fernandes and continued walking, not going back the way he came, all part of the charade to avoid suspicion.

“You could talk to her.”

“What?” Oliver bit out.

Felicity was unfazed. “Mrs. Fernandes. About Camille. She’d want to know.”

He froze. Absolutely not. He could never tell that woman what had happened to her daughter. Sometimes ignorance was bliss. Not knowing might be painful, but that was nothing compared to the horror of reality. The thought of burdening her with any of it had his stomach curdling.

They watched Diggle disappear again. 

Instead of looking at Felicity, Oliver turned his attention to their surroundings. A quick sweep earlier had locked the terrain in his mind’s eye and nothing had moved.

Oliver picking at the bandages was the only sound in the car.

“Are you in the Russian mob?”

The simple question sucked all the air out of the car.

He should have expected it. Should have known it was coming. There were too many coincidences, too many connections, too many answers he had, too much information. That hadn’t stopped him from wishing she would never know, somehow. But she was too damn smart for that. It was one of the best things about her. He should want to tell her, he told himself, because she needed to know just how deep he was in this shit. But when he opened his mouth, no sound came out.

“Oliver?” 

He deflated and turned to her.

Movement caught his eye.

It was so slight, he should’ve missed it. There were fifteen cars parked on the street, theirs included, and absolutely none of them raised red flags. The surrounding buildings had seemed innocuous enough, but with better vantage points, so he’d paid more attention to those. It was easier to set up shop in a room than a vehicle out in the open.

He’d been wrong.

Through the heavily tinted driver’s side window of a generic coupe parked a couple spots ahead of them, the hint of a long camera lens caught the reflection of a streetlight.

“What?” Felicity asked, turning to follow his gaze. “What is it?”

“Someone’s in that car,” Oliver said. He felt the alarm rising in her and he grabbed her arm, squeezing it before he turned the car on. He slapped his chest to activate his comm. “Diggle.”

“I’m here.”

“Don’t come up the street. Meet us on the back corner of Decatur.”

“Copy.”

Oliver barely kept himself from slamming on the gas. Keeping the lights off, he maneuvered out of the spot and slowly reversed up the street. 

The second he hit the top of the road, he jammed the car into drive and shot over to meet Diggle. When he spotted the other man jogging towards him, he pulled into the first spot he could find. 

“Did they see them?” Felicity turned to him with wide eyes. “John and Mrs. Fernandes?”

“If they did, they won’t be able to tell anyone about it,” Oliver promised her darkly.

He didn’t wait for her response, to see if she understood, if she agreed. Because if she didn’t, he wasn’t sure what he would do. Her insistence was one thing, but his following up on his promise to snuff out anyone who was a threat was entirely different.

Diggle reached the driver’s side and Oliver shoved the door open.

Felicity grabbed his arm.

He closed his eyes. She was going to stop him, to tell him there was another way, but there _wasn’t_ , not with this-

“Be careful,” she said, and he looked back at her. “I know I don’t have to tell you that, because you’re always careful, but I just need you to be extra careful right now, okay? Because these guys are scary, and dangerous. Not that you aren’t scary and dangerous, you are, but these guys-”

Oliver kissed her.

His lips tingled as he pulled back. “I’ll be careful.”

“Promise me.”

It was foolish, and they both knew it. He couldn’t control a goddamn thing in the field, only himself, and sometimes that wasn’t enough. But he also knew why she said it, and he read the fear and determination in her eyes as readily as he felt them in his chest. He had to come back. For her. 

To her.

Oliver brushed his fingers over her jaw. “I’ll be back.”

“You better be,” Felicity said.

A smile tugged at his lips, somehow, despite everything. With one last look, Oliver stepped out of the car. He didn’t give Diggle a chance to say or ask anything, instead barking out a terse, “Watch her,” before he ran back in the direction they’d come.

The instant he reached the top of Felicity’s street, a calm fell over him.

And along with it came dark anticipation.

Oliver melted into the shadows, letting them swallow him up, turning him invisible. Low chatter came in over the comms, Diggle asking Felicity what was happening, Felicity responding. Oliver clicked it off, allowing room for all his senses to zero in on the vehicle. He waited, slowed his breathing, double checking for movement. If they had seen him taking off, or had gotten out of the car on an off bit of luck, he didn’t want to give himself away. He wasn’t sure who the Bratva had watching Felicity, but if they had avoided detection this long, then they were smart and careful.

His patience paid off.

A silhouette shifted on the passenger side of the car.

Two of them.

Oliver moved.

He was at the car in the blink of an eye, slamming his elbow into the driver’s window. It cracked with a thundering crunch. The tint just barely held the glass together. Muffled shouts sounded, but by the time Oliver heard them, he was already hitting the window again.

Glass scattered everywhere.

“ _What the fuck_?” a voice shouted in Russian.

The vocal confirmation of who it was only fueled him, as did the barrel thrust into his face.

Oliver shoved the gun away and punched the driver. Pain exploded in his fist where his knuckles cracked along the guy’s jaw, the hit knocking him out cold. An alarmed shout erupted from the other side and then the passenger door flew open, a thick-necked thug spilling out onto the sidewalk. 

He caught the shine of another pistol, heard the telltale click of a hammer being pulled back. Oliver snatched the gun from the driver’s limp hand and threw it at the thug’s face. It hit him square in the nose. By the time he recovered enough to look up, Oliver was already scrambling over the hood. 

“Who the hell are you?” the man demanded. 

Oliver responded with a fist to his throat. With a gargled yelp, the guy staggered back, one hand flying to his neck, the other waving the gun at Oliver. He didn’t give the man a chance to use it. Oliver sidestepped and rammed his boot into the side of the Russian’s knee. It collapsed with an ugly crunch. Strangled shrieks broke the night air, and it had Oliver’s blood rushing faster. He yanked the gun out of his hands and knocked him out with a boot to the face.

A heavy body crashed into him from behind. 

He hit the ground hard before two hundred pounds of pure muscles landed on him. The air rocketed out of Oliver’s lungs. Spots danced over his vision, but that didn’t stop him from shoving up and grabbing the man’s jacket over his head. Using every bit of strength he could, Oliver flipped him over his shoulder. Agony roared through his arm, but Oliver still leapt to his feet and went after the driver. He struggled to stand, but Oliver didn’t let him get there, kicking him viciously in the shoulder, sending him twisting to land face-first on the sidewalk. He tried to stand, leaving a nauseating smear of blood and snot on the concrete.

Oliver kicked him onto his back. 

He crouched over him, ready to interrogate him, but the man’s fist smashed into Oliver’s face. He punched at Oliver’s chest, his throat, his fists swinging wildly to collide with his ears and temples. They were sloppy, though, and Oliver easily knocked his arms away and punched him as hard as he could.

Again.

And again. 

He meant to go for compliance, to get answers, but each time his fist landed, he was already pulling back for another hit. 

There wasn’t anything but cartilage turning to mulch.

The spurt of fresh blood.

The soaring feeling in his chest.

 _Felicity’s voice_.

Oliver jerked away so hard he tumbled over. He quickly spun, expecting to see her standing behind him.

But she wasn’t there.

No, she was in his ear. 

The fight had activated the button on his comm at some point, and her voice - her beautiful, light voice - filled his mind. He had no idea what she was saying, but he didn’t have to. 

It was her, and that was enough, her presence, her belief in him all wrapping around him.

The last few seconds came back in jagged bits and pieces.

With heavy gasps that had nothing to do with exertion, Oliver shoved up to his feet. He looked at his right hand. He couldn’t feel it, and for a moment he swore the bloody fist wasn’t his. But then he looked at the unconscious mess before him, and he knew it was. He had done that. Blood spattered the concrete, small pools forming close to the man’s head, one thin trail leaking into a crack in the sidewalk. Mangled, beaten to a pulp, but alive if the sticky breaths sneaking out of his lungs were any indication.

He hadn’t killed him.

It wasn’t relief Oliver felt, though.

 _Displeasure_. 

He wanted to. Needed to. This man had invaded Felicity’s privacy, seen her at her most vulnerable. He deserved death, and more.

But Felicity’s voice reminded him that wasn’t who he was anymore.

A door shutting somewhere down the street made him jump. 

It was one thing to do this suited up, but another entirely when he was Oliver fucking Queen. He quickly looked around, but thankfully there were no new lights on, no moving curtains, nobody on the street. 

“Fuck,” he breathed. “Stupid.”

The talking on the other side of the comm stopped, and he quickly shut his side off.

Oliver hauled both bodies back into the car, grunting and cursing the entire way. He glared at the blood staining the concrete, but there was nothing he could do about it. He quickly dismantled the guns and tossed the pieces away in random garbage cans down a nearby alley. He checked the men’s pockets, but all he came up with was one wallet that only held cash. No cell phones, no handheld cameras, nothing that might hold data.

The camera he’d seen sat on the dash.

A quick search of the car yielded nothing but fast food wrappers and useless trash. No notes, no computer, nothing that would explain the folder.

Smacking his chest, Oliver growled, “Digg.”

“We’re here,” Diggle replied as Felicity asked, “Oliver?”

Her voice washed over him all over again.

“Yeah,” he said. He paused at the sound of his own voice - dark and gritty and broken. He swallowed to clear it, but it didn’t help. “I took care of the car. I’m going to do a quick sweep.”

“Copy.”

He worked his way outward, making sure nobody else was there. He’d hit too hard and fast for them to make any calls, but that didn’t mean they were alone.

Except they were.

Oliver wasn’t sure if what he felt was relief or disappointment.

He clicked on the comm. “We’re clear.”

Oliver slipped the strap of the camera over his head and shoulder and swung it over his back as he jogged to the Mercedes. He expected an acknowledgement from Diggle, maybe even one from Felicity, something quick and easy. Part of him secretly hoped he’d hear, “ _Let’s go home_ ,” from her, a phrase that always lightened his heart whenever it slipped out.

He got the opposite.

“I want to go into my apartment.”

Oliver skidded to a stop. “What? No.”

He vaguely heard Diggle agreeing with him, but Felicity talked over them.

“I want to go into my apartment,” she repeated, and before he could argue, she added, “You just told us things were clear, Oliver. We’re already here. And I need more stuff. I can’t live out of the bag John got me forever. There’s stuff nobody thinks to grab, like my hairbrush, and more socks.”

“I have socks,” Oliver gritted out, and it was as stupid as it sounded. He huffed. “Tell me what you need and-”

“No, that’s not the point,” Felicity exclaimed. 

The desperate tinge to it scraped Oliver’s nerves until he wanted to explode. 

“Then what is the goddamn point?” he demanded. “Why are you-”

“I can’t let this control me! It’s _my_ apartment. It’s _my_ space. They’ve already taken away so much from me, I can’t let them have more. It’s mine, and I just… I need to go in there.”

“Felicity…”

“If there was ever a time,” Diggle said, “it’s now.”

Oliver clenched his jaw and glared in their general direction. He understood what she was saying, knew that driving urge to reclaim what they took from her, the need to not let them have more.

It did nothing to ease the anxious knot twisting his gut.

“Please,” she whispered. 

“Fine,” he breathed. Fighting the urge to tell her ‘ _fuck no, we’re leaving_ ,’ Oliver instead growled, “I’ll meet you over there.”

“Okay,” Felicity replied. She tried to hide a shaky sigh, and the knot tightened. “Good.”

As Felicity directed Diggle where to go - the other man’s silent smile was obvious when he told her he knew - Oliver’s frown stayed fixed while he did another quick circuit. It deepened when Felicity mentioned Mrs. Fernandes and Diggle had to tell her seeing her right now wasn’t a good idea. 

That was a fucking understatement. 

He’d reached the roof of Felicity’s apartment by the time they pulled up. He stepped up to the ledge to watch them get out. 

The knot eased at the sight of her.

“Oh,” she said as she reached her door. She pulled out a small piece of tech he recognized. “My scrambler. Two birds, one stone - I haven’t changed the comm frequencies, so they should still work. You know… just in case there’s…”

Cameras. 

Listening devices. 

God, he hated this idea more with each passing second.

A static burst sounded in his ear and then Felicity asked, “Did it work? Oliver?”

“I’m here.”

“Yay.” 

None of them said anything when her hands shook as she unlocked the door.

“Hang back,” Diggle said, a hand on her shoulder. “Oliver?”

“I’ve got her.”

Diggle ducked inside. 

Oliver didn’t take his eyes off her where she fidgeted. She looked around, at Mrs. Fernandes’ door, and then the other direction, then behind her. Then up, as if she felt his gaze. She let out a startled, “Oh,” before smiling and waving. 

He couldn’t help the way his lips curved slightly.

“All clear,” Diggle announced.

The would-be smile disappeared when she did.

Oliver lingered just long enough to know they were alone before he jumped down to join them.

He gave a quick knock to announce his presence and opened the front door.

To the barrel of a gun.

Oliver stopped short. 

Diggle gave a little shrug and waved him in. He did a quick check up the street, his movements smooth and efficient, those of a soldier in the field.

With Felicity’s voice murmuring in her bedroom, Diggle waved his finger in the air and they both turned off their comms.

“They alive?” Diggle asked.

Oliver grunted an affirmative as he flexed his blood-streaked hand. “They won’t be happy when they wake up, though.”

“Good.”

Slipping the camera over his head, Oliver set it on the tiny island separating her kitchen from her living room and glanced down the hallway. He could hear her, knew she was there… 

It wasn’t until he saw her shadow in the bathroom that he let himself take a breath.

 _Safe_.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, man.”

Oliver looked at Diggle with a furrowed brow. 

“I know I don’t have to say tread carefully here,” Diggle continued, and Oliver’s stomach sank as he realized where he was going. “And not because I won’t hesitate to break you in half if anything happens to that woman in there. We both know she can handle herself, but we also both know that whatever this is-” He waved between Oliver and the hallway. “It isn’t simple. Be careful. For both your sakes.”

Diggle waited the eternity it took Oliver to give a tiny nod. But he didn’t expect more, and for that Oliver was grateful. Because he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what was happening between them, or how it fit into everything going on… 

The only thing he knew was that he didn’t want it to stop. 

He should, but he didn’t.

Diggle stared at him for another beat before nodding. “We should talk about her mom. Felicity might think she believes that bullshit about a psychic, but I think it was just that: bullshit.”

“God,” Oliver breathed, squeezing his eyes shut. “I haven’t even thought about it.” How the hell could he keep her safe if he wasn’t watching every angle? Guilt hammered him. That, and anger. Of course it was fucking related. It had to be. He sighed. “You’re right.”

“I’ve got some people who can look into it,” Diggle said. The hair on the back of Oliver’s neck rose as he looked at Diggle. “They aren’t as good as Felicity, but they know their stuff.”

“ARGUS?” Oliver asked. If Amanda Waller caught wind of this…

Diggle huffed. “No. As discreet as Lyla is, this is complicated enough. No, I got a guy I know from my Army days. He’s good, under the radar. I’ll start with him.”

Oliver’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah. Good. Okay. Where are you going to-”

“Hey, I got this,” Diggle interrupted. “I know you want to keep this as close to the vest as possible, but you’re only one person, and you already have enough on your plate. Let me help. I’ll get things rolling, and you know I’ll tell you the second I know anything.”

Oliver stared at him. He was right. The other harsh truth was that he was already letting things slip through the cracks. How long before he even thought about that phone call from earlier? 

Still, the urge to handle it himself was strong.

His trust in Diggle was stronger.

Oliver nodded. “Thank you.”

“I’ll get on it first thing. As for right now… You have the keys to their car?” Off Oliver’s confused look, he fished out the Mercedes keys and offered them to Oliver. “You take these and I’ll take the trash out.”

“What’re you thinking?” Oliver asked as they switched keys.

“Nasty car crash. There’s an embankment a couple miles from here. Won’t kill them. Won’t treat them nice either.” 

They shared a moment of understanding. Diggle might have plenty of thoughts about everything else going on, but one thing they unequivocally agreed on was Felicity’s safety.

And making those who hurt her pay.

For a long moment after Diggle left, Oliver did nothing but listen to the sounds coming from down the hallway. Even with his comm switched off, he could hear the murmur of her voice. He closed his eyes, just existing in it, letting it calm him. 

Then he flexed his hand. 

Dried blood flaked onto Felicity’s carpet.

With one last glance down the hallway, Oliver went into the kitchen. He turned the water on as hot as he could get it and scrubbed his hands until they were raw. Then he grabbed some paper towels and wiped his jacket, unzipping it to get all the splatters out of the creases.

It was as good as it was going to get.

Drying his hands roughly, Oliver checked on her again.

The sound of hangers on a metal bar settled him. 

Sighing, he looked around.

He’d never been inside her apartment before. Not like this. Cluttered in only the way she could be, clean, absolutely no space wasted, color bursting from every surface. It reminded him of her cubicle in the IT department when he’d first met her. As he moved around, it occurred to him that her EA desk wasn’t as bright, or as branded with her particular flair. Even her desk at the foundry wasn’t this full. Here she was all over the place, in every detail. He frowned - she probably viewed QC and the foundry as a shared space, but he hated the idea of her muting herself to accommodate anyone else. Especially him.

A rainbow notepad covered in a grocery list.

Bobbleheads of people he didn’t know.

Half-used candles bunched up in corners.

Books, everything from old textbooks to science fiction to romance. He dragged his finger down some spines of the more well-used books. They had to be her favorites. 

A bouquet made of what looked like receipt paper sat in the center of her dining table. Oliver fingered the edge of one of the paper flowers. A fine dust fell off it. He frowned, wiping it away before angling his head to see where they were from. The Coffee Nook. Had she made these?

Over her television was a poster of Robin Hood.

He allowed himself a smile.

Then he realized the sounds had stopped.

Oliver froze, listening, but he heard nothing. He walked over to the hallway. “Felicity?” 

Silence.

Panic blindsided him. Oliver shot down the hallway. Empty bathroom, closet, a laundry nook. He bolted into her bedroom, slamming into the partially closed door.

She stood at the foot of her bed.

Heart in his throat, he glanced around the room, but nothing was amiss.

“God, Felicity,” he breathed, his hand grasping her arm, “I thought…”

She didn’t move. She hadn’t moved when he damn near broken her door off its hinges. She stood frozen, staring at her bed with a blank look on her face. A half-packed bag sat there, a few dresses, some shirts and pants and underwear sprawled around, bathroom items interspersing it all.

A chill swept through his veins.

“Felicity?”

She finally blinked, as if just waking up. She slowly looked up at him and he went rigid.

Wide eyes, skin so pale it was translucent, her right hand clenched in a bloodless fist over her heart. He could see how fast her pulse raced at her neck.

“What is it?” he asked, turning her to face him. He rubbed her arms, and couldn’t hide his alarm when he felt how cold she was even through her jacket. “Felicity, what happened-”

She pulled her hand away from her chest and opened it up between them.

In the center of her palm sat a small camera, the size of a dime. It was so unassuming, save for the long wire snaking out the back and the tiny red light flashing every few seconds. 

Rage whipped through him. 

“I found a camera in my bathroom,” she whispered. Tears slid down her cheeks. He wiped them away, but more came. “It was in the vent. I knew there had to be one, from the pictures. The angle of it, to get that they had to… they had to… They went into my bathroom. Unscrewed the vent… and they put a camera in there. It’s not a big bathroom. It’s a tiny bathroom. They could see _everything_ -”

Oliver shook his head to stop her, but the words kept falling out.

“And they had a picture of me in the closet. So I was looking for that one, and… and from the distance, I knew it had to be here.” Felicity turned, forcing him to let her go as she moved to her dresser. A shaking hand touched a spot just under the lip of the large piece of furniture. “And it was. It was right here, but… But it wasn’t facing my closet anymore. It was facing my bed. Like someone had come back in… and _turned it_.”

He connected the dots in a horrific rush as she looked up at him.

“Why would they need to see me in bed?” Felicity asked, her voice breaking, quickly morphing into a high-pitched sob. “Why would they need to see me there?”

With a whisper of her name, Oliver pulled her into his arms. She fell into him, sobs wrenching out of her. He wrapped her up as tight as he could, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough, and he knew with sickening certainty that nothing he did ever would be. He could burn down the entire Brava organization and nothing would take away this invasion. Her cries tore out of her with aching violence, and he held her tighter, wanting to absorb her pain, hating that he couldn’t. Her gasps hot and harsh, her tears soaking into his shirt, he took it, wishing he could take more, that he could carry it all for her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, pressing his face into her hair. “I’m so sorry.”

“I shouldn’t’ve come in here,” Felicity sobbed. “I-I shouldn’t have come here. I should’ve stayed in the car like you told me to, stayed at the foundry. I can’t do this. I can’t handle this.”

“No, Felicity…” 

Oliver pulled back. She tried to fight him, but he didn’t let her, holding her face so he could look into her eyes.

“You are the strongest person I have ever met,” he told her.

She rapidly shook her head.

“No, you _are_. And that’s why…” His voice betrayed the pressure growing in his chest. “It’s because you’re so strong that this scares me so much. You are so strong, Felicity. Stronger than me, than Diggle, than anyone I’ve ever known. I know you can survive this. You can survive the Bratva, the gala, anything and everything. Don’t think for a second that because I don’t want you anywhere near this is because I don’t think you can handle it. You can. _I_ can’t.”

His voice broke.

“What you can handle terrifies me. You’re stronger than this. Than the Bratva. Than me.”

More tears slipped down her cheeks. “Oliver…”

“You are,” he promised.

Face crumpling, Felicity grabbed at his jacket, tugging at it, at him. 

Oliver pressed his lips to her forehead. She leaned into him, hard, and with a ragged exhale, he wrapped her up again. Felicity burrowed into him, breathing him in, both of them hugging each other so tight it hurt.

Neither of them let go.

It lasted forever, and it was over far too quickly.

But he needed them to be out of there.

Oliver pulled back and brushed errant strands of hair away from her temples. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Felicity sniffed, wiping her face. And she smiled. It was real, and beautiful, and Oliver had to trace the slight curve. 

_She_ was beautiful.

He’d always known she was gorgeous, since the first second she spun around with that red pen in her mouth, but right now she was _beautiful_. Honest. And strong, just like he knew she was. She felt every horror of what was happening, but she didn’t fall under it. That she could still smile like that in the face of everything happening was a marvel. It was that very strength that terrified him, but the same one that he needed her to see, to understand. It kept her standing tall, kept her going, no matter how heavy the load.

“You are remarkable,” he whispered.

Pink tinged her cheeks. “Thank you for remarking on it.”

They shared a smile.

“So. I was thinking…” Felicity cleared her throat of the rest of her tears. She pulled away just enough to dig into her pocket and bring her hand up again. Now there were two dime-sized cameras in her palm. Anger flashed through him once more, hot and steady, and he gripped her waist, struck dumb with the sudden fear that she’d disappear if he let her go. She didn’t seem to notice or mind as she poked at the cameras. “I could trace the signal for these. They don’t have drives, and this-” She wiggled the wire. “Has to be transmitting the feed.”

God, she amazed him.

And he wanted to destroy every son of a bitch who had stepped foot in here.

“Do you need both?” he asked.

“Well, no, I guess not,” Felicity replied. “If we’re assuming the feeds go back to the same place, which would be a logical assumption, then no, but-”

He snatched one camera, dropped it on the floor, and crushed it under his heel.

“Oliver!” She slapped his chest. “What did you do that for? Do you know how expensive these things are? What they can do?”

Her outrage at the destruction of the very tool used to spy on her had him chuckling. It was so very her. The pained vulnerability was still there, but his ferocious sprite of a woman had come roaring back.

“It was a message,” he told her.

“You don’t have to destroy perfectly good tech to do that.”

“Now they know they can’t watch you anymore.”

“You could’ve written that on the wall with lipstick. You didn’t need to crush the camera!” When all he did was look at her, she rolled her eyes as she tucked the other camera safely back into her pocket. “Fine! Great. Now they know we know. Still.”

Oliver nodded to her half-packed bag. “Are you almost done?”

“Yeah.” She filled it, throwing things in haphazardly. “Where’s John?”

“He’s taking care of the men I found outside,” he replied. 

Felicity nodded and finished packing. 

Oliver took her bag as she turned off the lights in each room. When they reached the kitchen, he grabbed the camera off the counter. He didn’t miss the way she faltered at the sight of it, but she kept going, shutting off the rest of the lights and locking her apartment back up.

He tossed the camera and her bag in the trunk before they climbed into the Mercedes.

Oliver turned his comm back on. “Digg?”

A quick burst of static erupted over the comms, followed by a stringent, “Almost done. But the driver got away.” Ice filled Oliver’s chest, and he looked at Felicity. Her eyes widened, her skin paling again, but she didn’t look away. “I was setting up the other guy at the scene when he came to. Knocked me over the goddamn head and by the time I was up, he was gone.”

“Fuck.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” Oliver replied. “This is on me. I should’ve…” _Killed them_. Oliver bit his tongue to keep the words to himself. He didn’t look at Felicity as he turned the car on. “We’re leaving now. Where are you?”

Diggle rattled off an address.

“We’re on our way.”

“Copy.”

As they left her complex, Felicity’s hand migrated over to his where it sat on the gear shaft.

Oliver winced when she touched his aching knuckles.

She paused, looking at him, then at his hand. He thought about yanking it away before she could see the damage, but she was already gingerly picking it up. The shadows between the passing streetlights did little to hide his ravaged skin. Bright red and already bruising, tiny cuts littering the scarred flesh, it looked like he’d tried to cave a man’s face in tonight.

He wished he had.

A tendril of shame whispered through him.

What would she think if she knew it was her voice, and only her voice, that had stopped him from killing those men? She hadn’t even asked if they were alive earlier. She had assumed. She had thought he wouldn’t kill. Not anymore. 

He curled away from her.

She didn’t let him. Felicity tugged his hand back and laced her fingers through his.

Oliver frowned, even as his heart stuttered. “Felicity…”

She squeezed him gently, giving him a tender smile.

All he could do was stare at her.

He should pull away. For her sake, for his. Because death covered his hands. Because he wasn’t the man she thought he was. Because it was evidence he wasn’t protecting her, and he should be. But mostly because he didn’t know why he couldn’t let her go. Because, god help him, he didn’t want to. He needed her, needed this, more than he could put into words.

He should let her go.

Oliver squeezed her back.

Their fingers stayed tangled when they picked up Diggle, as her eyes grew heavy, as her body finally succumbed to exhaustion.

She jerked awake when he pulled away once they reached the foundry.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, kissing her forehead. He was around to her side before she could move, opening the door and picking her up. “I’ve got you.”

“I know,” she whispered before falling asleep in his arms as he carried her inside.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
> **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


	12. Thursday 6 a.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver helps Felicity deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is one giant examination of Oliver Queen's "one step forward, two steps back" tendencies. (And some of Felicity's. Eventually.) 
> 
> Thank you for the freaking amazing response, guys! Please enjoy! (As usual, I tinkered a lot with it before posting it after Jess' amazing help, so all mistakes are mine.)

  
(62 hours before the gala)

_… what i've felt, what i've known, never shined through in what i've shown…_

Sleep receded at a glacial pace.

No blaring alarm clock, no sun melting her face, no nightmares. She was safe. Warm. So why in the world was she waking up?

Felicity cuddled deeper into the bed. An earthy, clean smell soothed her into dozing for several more minutes before awareness of her surroundings slipped in - water dripping, steam hissing, her servers whirring.

She was at the foundry.

The last thing she remembered was being in the car with Oliver.

_… his large, heated palm on her calf as he tugged her boot off… sliding down to her ankle, gently setting her foot on the cot… the same motion with her other foot… his warm chest hovering over her, his elbow brushing her thigh… replaced with a blanket… callused fingers grasping hers… something scratchy, then the warm press of his lips on her hand…_

She blinked awake, expecting to see Oliver sitting next to her.

He wasn’t.

Disappointment fluttered through her. It was insane to expect him to be there. And yet she did, and not just because the only time she felt safe last night was when he was by her side-

Memories from the day before hit her, and a fist instantly closed around her throat.

_No._

Felicity shoved it all away and sat up. She scrubbed her face. Her glasses sat on a box by the bed. Grabbing them, she scooted to the edge of the bed and listened for Oliver. 

She heard nothing. 

“Oliver?” she called, crawling off the cot.

It wasn’t icy concrete that greeted her socked feet, though.

Frowning, Felicity looked down to a messy pile of beige cloth, like drape cloths used for painting, all layered up lengthwise next to the cot.

Had he slept there last night?

“Oh Oliver,” she whispered, crouching to touch the makeshift pallet. “You idiot.”

Was this what he’d been sleeping on since she basically commandeered his bed?

“Well, this is just stupid,” Felicity declared. The icy floor seeped through the cloth and into her socks. “ _Stupid_ ,” she repeated before standing with a louder, “Oliver?”

Her voice carried through the large, open space, more than loud enough for him to hear.

Nothing.

Where was he?

A shiver hit her as the frigid morning air crawled over her bare arms. And he’d slept on the _floor_. There was no way he’d been warm enough to do anything, much less sleep. Agitation bit at her - _what a stupid, self-sacrificing moron_ \- and she looked around for her bag. Her jacket laid across a nearby crate. Her boots were underneath it, and next to them was the bag she had packed.

Oliver’s sweatshirt sat draped across the top of it.

Felicity paused. She had left it in the bathroom yesterday morning, and it had still been there when she took her shower last night. But now it was here. 

Had he grabbed it and brought it back for her?

Her irritation thawed. Slightly. There was still so much they needed to discuss, stuff he needed to explain, things she needed to understand, everything she needed to research, the people she wanted to track down from those lists, the extremely troubling fact of the folder cataloguing every detail of her life, the cameras she’d found-

Knives twisted in her gut.

Felicity snatched up the sweatshirt and tugged it on.

Oliver’s scent wrapped around her and she breathed it in. The sweatshirt swallowed her up much like it had the other night, chasing away the cold. A lot like his arms, actually. She had to gather it in and around her, and it only reminded her how big he was. 

It made her feel safe.

Which was nice, considering there was still no sign of him. 

Frowning, she looked around for her phone. What time was it? She checked her jacket and found her phone, her keys, and the scrambler. It was still on, even though she’d disconnected the camera’s power source. Her fingers shook as she clicked it off and quickly tossed it aside. Swallowing hard, she checked the time. Just past six in the morning. 

He had to be up and about somewhere. 

She made a pit stop in the bathroom first. The dark blue circles had faded a bit, and instead of an ashy pallor, she had some life back in her skin. Did Oliver get any rest? How could he look like anything other than the walking dead after sleeping on a concrete floor?

Her annoyance snapped back to life, and with a scowl, she went looking for him.

The lights were off, leaving only the glow of the emergency lights casting everything in green.

Shadows stretched across the main floor, dark and endless.

Hunkering deeper into the sweatshirt, she looked around. No Oliver.

Felicity bit her lips together and moved to flip the lights on when her eyes caught on her desk.

The tiny disk camera she’d found in her bedroom sat by her keyboard, along with the long-range camera Oliver had found in the car outside her apartment.

She knew why they were there. Because she had wanted to track the signal, one, and two, who knew what she would find on the camera used to look inside her apartment. There might be clues where the camera itself had been, and other pictures, maybe even some fingerprints she could salvage, if she was lucky. It was something to do, she told herself. Something tangible and real as opposed to that folder of pictures and notes and-

Felicity didn’t realize she was moving backwards, away from her desk, away from the cameras, until she slammed into something.

With a gasp, she spun around.

An arm popped out of the shadows.

Felicity screamed and shoved her attacker away. Fear thundered through her veins, her heart pounding so hard it turned her legs into overcooked spaghetti as she lurched away… only to crash into something else. She tumbled to the ground in a heap, metal screeching against the floor, a bowl, cotton balls, and an empty water bottle falling on her head. She rolled onto her back and looked up.

She expected to see a man standing over her with a gun.

But it was just the stupid frakking dummy.

Felicity sagged. “Oh my god.” 

Plastering a hand over her heart, willing it to calm, she glared at the giant piece of wood.

And then she laughed. 

It was harsh and shrill, startling her. And it kept coming in choked giggles. Smothering it, Felicity forced out heavy breaths, trying to slow her racing heart. It just seemed to beat harder, though, sending pins and needles dancing over her scalp in a burning rush. Her legs shook as she pushed to her feet to confront her would-be attacker.

Felicity touched the arm, curling her nails into it. Just wood. She poked it.

She laughed again - at herself, at the dummy, at _all of it_ \- and pressed her hand to her chest once more. Her heart wouldn’t slow down. And she couldn’t stop laughing. It kept ripping out of her, over and over, louder, sharper, uglier…

It turned into sobs.

The dummy just sat there, watching her, doing nothing. Used. Scuffed. Chipped. And there, on the very arm that had just scared the shit out of her, was a tiny smear of blood. Her blood, from when she’d fallen against it on a night that seemed like a thousand years ago. The healing cut on her side seared with awareness, and it spread through her like wildfire.

Felicity reeled back and punched the dummy.

Pain exploded in her hand, and she cursed. 

The dummy didn’t budge. 

Her fist colliding with it barely even made a sound. 

Nothing happened.

Clenching her jaw, Felicity hit it again, harder this time. More pain sliced through her hand, but it was easy to ignore when the dummy barely moved. Growling, she shoved it as hard as she could, but it only scooted an inch, if that.

An inferno erupted in her chest, and she punched it again, and again, and again.

Alternating her fists, Felicity hammered the dummy. 

Tears slid down her cheek, her throat burned, but she didn’t stop. It hurt, but she wanted it to, her knuckles threatening to crack under the assault, her arms aching. She hit harder, needing to get rid of the feeling in her chest, the horrible heaviness, because it was suffocating her. She was so scared, and so mad, and they were winning, and damn it, she was done. They were taking too much, invading her space, stealing her privacy, making her feel helpless and hopeless.

But the more she hit, the more the feeling stuck. 

It filled her with a scream, deafening and forceful, drowning out everything else. 

She hit harder, harder, until she had nothing left.

Felicity finally fell still. 

Her throat hurt like she’d been the one screaming. She gasped for air, blood rushing in her ears, her heart beating so hard it hurt. Her vision dimmed around the edges. She felt her heartbeat in her hands and when she looked at them, they throbbed, hot and achy. Her sweaty skin was sticky under the sweatshirt, stray strands of hair sticking to her forehead. 

All of that, and the dummy had barely moved. There wasn’t even a scratch on it.

She had done _nothing_.

With a shout, Felicity shoved it again. 

More tears fell, scoring her sensitive skin, and she scrubbed them away. She was so sick of crying, of doing nothing, of waiting, of reacting-

Movement caught the corner of her eye.

Felicity whipped around to see a hooded figure standing at the base of the stairs. 

He was half-obscured by shadows, but she didn’t need to see him to know who it was.

“You’re an idiot,” Felicity bit out. He jerked, surprised, and it only upset her more, all the anger she couldn’t get out of her erupting onto him. “What were you thinking, sleeping on the floor like that? You think I’m okay with that? When there’s a perfectly good bed, right there? Well, I’m not. You don’t need to do stuff like that, Oliver! I don’t care what you’re thinking. The last thing we need is the freaking Arrow being down and out with a cold because instead of sleeping in a perfectly good bed, he slept on ice-cold concrete with barely a sheet!”

She was suddenly so hot she thought she was going to burst. 

Felicity tugged the zipper down and ripped the sweatshirt off, throwing it away. She shoved her fingers into her damp hair. It didn’t help the unbearable pressure, or the nail hammering right into her brain. She dug her nails into the spot between her brows to dig it out.

“You should spread your feet.”

“What?” Felicity demanded, looking back at him.

“Spread your feet,” Oliver repeated, tugging his hood down as he came closer.

She opened her mouth to ask what the hell he meant, but her brain stopped when he reached over the back of his head and tugged his sweat-soaked sweatshirt up and off. It took the sweat-dampened t-shirt he had on underneath with it. For a second it revealed the harsh cut of his abdomen and skin sweaty enough to gleam even under the little light in the room. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the deeply chiseled V. Or that while he’d tied his sweats, they still hung precariously low on his hips, revealing a hint of hair that grew thicker before disappearing from view. He tossed the sweatshirt on top of the one she had just been wearing and tugged his t-shirt back into place. 

It was so sweaty that it just stuck to him.

“Uh…” was all she managed before he was on her. 

Felicity looked up at him, trying to think, but the dark look that stared back at her had her stomach swooping. 

Her mind blanked all over again.

Oliver grabbed her hips and spun her.

Felicity squeaked as he walked her a couple feet back to the dummy.

“Spread your feet.” She shivered at the wall of heat at her back, his searing palms burning her hips. “Pull your right foot back.”

He hooked his foot around her right ankle and tugged, and she swore the floor fell away.

“Now try again.”

It was only when he let her go that the words made sense.

“Oh,” she murmured, blinking dumbly at the dummy. She slowly made fists again, wincing when her tender skin pulled over her knuckles once more. She felt more solid, she had to admit. “Okay.”

Felicity punched the dummy.

It barely moved.

“Well, I clearly can’t do this,” she said heatedly. She turned to give Oliver a mocking smile, but he was walking away from her. Hurt cut a painful swath through her - even he knew she was useless. Felicity threw her hands up. “Right. I’m just gonna go-”

“No,” Oliver interrupted, and he was back before her, grabbing her elbow before she could turn. He had black wraps in his hand. “Don’t move.”

“This is stupid,” she vented, unable to stop. “This is your thing, not mine-”

“Felicity.” He grabbed her chin. “I’m going to show you how to take something like this down.”

She paused. “What?”

“I know what you’re feeling right now,” Oliver said softly. He didn’t let her go, his thumb brushing the edge of her lower lip. The intimacy of it struck her, but it wasn’t sexual, not with the dim lighting casting his face in harsh angles, and the raw look in his eyes. “Let me help?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Okay,” he replied. He took a slow breath before requesting, “Can I see your hands?”

Furrowing her brow, she raised them. He hissed when he saw the bright red, agitated state of her knuckles. He took her hands in his, examining them, shaking her head when he asked, “Do they hurt?” They didn’t, not really, although she had to admit they didn’t look great. Oliver brushed his thumb over them and pressed down. Probably to make sure she wasn’t lying. A troubled look crossed his face and his hold on her tightened. “I’m going to wrap your hands. We have enough scars down here.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” she replied.

Oliver gave her a look, and she returned it. 

When he huffed, she smiled a little. 

It didn’t loosen the feeling in her chest, but the air in the foundry lightened, just a smidge. 

Just enough. 

He took his time wrapping her hands, weaving the wrap between her fingers and around her knuckles in a sequence that she lost track of. But the pressure felt good. Her hands maybe hurt a little more than she realized. Or maybe it was just that it was Oliver wrapping them. His focus was singular, his care even more so.

It helped that he smelled amazing. He shouldn’t smell so good after sweating so much, right?

“Ready?” he asked when he finished.

“Mm,” was all she had.

“All you need to do,” Oliver said, “is fix your stance.”

He didn’t give her the chance to reply before he was spinning her around again. His hands were hot as he angled her body, changing her stance. It somehow got hotter when he grasped her waist to hold her steady, and when he grabbed her shoulders to pull them back.

And when his sneakered foot kicked hers apart and tugged her right foot back again. 

“A strong foundation gives everything you do more power.”

He stepped up behind her.

“What we should focus on is self-defense instead of offensive attacks.” Oliver reached around her to adjust the dummy. Her brain temporarily short-circuited at the sensation of being pressed against him while he did that. “Most of the time your opponent is going to be bigger than you. You’ll want to use their strength against them. I’d suggest Wing Chun.”

“Wang Chung?”

He chuckled. “Wing Chun. It’s a form of combat, close-range. It’s ideal for smaller people, like you, because it gives you the advantage against someone with brute force. Throwing a punch is good, but most of the time whoever you’re punching will be bigger than you.”

“But what if I want to punch them?”

“That’s what we’re going to work on. Put your fists up.” She did as he asked. He shifted closer. “Like this.”

Oliver slid his hands down her arms, adjusting her into a more formal stance. 

The more he touched her, the lower the pressure in her chest fell. It dropped into the pit of her stomach, tugging at her core. She swallowed hard, and before she could think twice, she leaned back into him. Every hard inch pressed into her with a delicious heaviness. It felt good. So good. He paused, and for a moment they just stood there. She thought she felt his face turning into her hair. A hint of his stubble against her ear. His quick breaths danced over the loose hair at her temples.

Then he slid his hands up her arms, leaving a tingling trail up to her shoulders to tug on them. 

“Back,” he said, a little roughly. It forced more of her to come into contact with him. He reached around to close his hands over her fists. “Straighten your wrists. Like this.”

His hands were huge. She knew exactly what they were capable of, the power, the ferocity, the skill, and maybe it should have scared her having all of that wrapped around her like that, but it didn’t.

No, she felt safe. Secure.

Ridiculously turned on.

Felicity took a quick, shaky breath, but it didn’t help. Heat coiled around her core, tugging and pulling, as she breathed in the clean, crisp smell that was uniquely Oliver. Hints of soap and leather and something that was purely him, all of it amplified from his run. His skin was smooth but damp, and so hot. He always ran hot, but now it engulfed her. So good. Intoxicating. Drugging her.

Arms pressed against hers, his chest to her back, his fingers curved over hers.

“You’re really sweaty,” she murmured.

A huff that sounded like a laugh. “Sorry.”

“No, I like it.”

His grip on her fists tightened. She should probably take that back, or at the very least say something to disrupt the sudden tension that clogged the air, but she didn’t. Because her brain had stopped working, but also because if the way his breath turned a little jagged was any indication, he liked that she liked it.

A thrill shot through her and she almost said screw it and turned before he cleared his throat. 

“The punch doesn’t come from your arms,” he said, releasing her hands. It took more willpower than necessary to maintain her position. Even more when he tapped her hips. “Use your stance to power it, okay? Give it a try.”

Right. 

Punching. Stance. Power.

It took her a moment to get used to the position. It was different, but she had seen Oliver and Diggle do it a thousand times. And it did feel more stable. More powerful.

Felicity punched the dummy.

It swayed with a resounding thud this time.

Elation slammed into her. 

And _release_.  


Gasping out a startled laugh, Felicity hit the dummy again, and it swayed once more. The heaviness in her chest evaporated. It wasn’t lightness she felt, but something headier - control. She felt like she was in control again and it was incredible.

“I did it,” she said with a grin, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She turned to Oliver. “I did it!”

“You did it,” he agreed.

With a giddy, “Ah!” she jumped into his arms. 

Oliver caught her.

The hug lasted a couple of seconds, if that, because she was laughing and wiggling, feeling so much better. So much like herself again. She felt his smile against her ear, gloried in the way his arms held her up off the ground. 

Her face hurt from grinning, but she didn’t stop, whispering, “Thank you.” 

Oliver’s arms tightened as he replied just as softly, “You’re welcome.”

They released each other, and her body slid down the front of his. Their noses brushed when she looked up at him. Her heart skipped at the soft touch, and it skipped again when his face softened. Her feet touched the ground, but neither of them moved away. His hands sprawled against her back, hers clutching his biceps, his muscles hard, the heat coming off him so vivid and close, warming her so thoroughly… 

She wanted to stay right here. 

He was so warm, so reassuring, so safe. She knew nothing would ever happen to her here.

“You’re a member of the Russian mafia, aren’t you?”

The question came out of nowhere. 

She didn’t know if it was the release letting her finally think again, or the ease with which he held her, or the trust in his eyes. 

It just came out and there was no taking it back.

Oliver went stock-still in her arms.

His brow twisted, and she saw the storm roaring to life, crashing, vicious and brutal. 

Then his face blanked. 

Ice filled his eyes.

“Yes,” Oliver said in a chilled whisper that made her shiver.

He let her go, stepping away.

“I am a Captain,” he told her. “I’m a high-ranking member in the brotherhood, not because I call the man who runs the largest faction of the Solntsevskaya Bratva a friend, but because I _earned_ it. I did things that impressed bad people. That made me worthy in their eyes. I sold my soul to the Bratva, and in return they call me _Kapitan_.”

The words slithered over her, and she wrapped her arms around her middle.

He was trying to scare her, and it was working.

But she didn’t back down.

“Is that why you claimed me?” she asked. “Because you’re a Captain?”

Oliver stared at her for a beat too long. And then he cocked his head, a little furrow appearing between his brows. 

He looked so detached she had to dig her teeth into her tongue to keep still. 

It got worse when he narrowed his eyes with a calculating gleam.

“Partly.”

He said nothing else.

“Are you going to explain that, or…?”

“There’s a Code the Bratva follows,” he said, staring directly at her. That was what was so jarring, she realized. He looked right at her. His eyes always shifted to look over her shoulder, especially when his past came up, almost like he didn’t want her to see the true breadth of it. Now he wanted her to see it, and it nailed her in place as much as it made her want to run. “It’s the foundation. Ranking is for nothing more than organization. Respect. But at the end of the day, nobody is exempt from the Code. Or the consequences of breaking it. If you do, you’re turning your back on the Bratva, and that… That is unforgivable.”

“What does that have to do with you claiming me?”

“Part of the Code is respecting what each member has, whether it’s land, a business. A person.”

She couldn’t fight the shiver that scraped down her spine. 

He caught it in the jerk of her shoulders and like a predator closing in on its prey, he stepped closer, invading her space.

“That’s right,” he said softly. “You belong to me.”

Felicity took a stuttered breath as a swath of heat cut through her. It was wrong, on so many levels, on every level. But it was still there, like it was the first time he’d said it, and she tried to think past it. But all that came out was, “I-I don’t understand.”

Oliver’s eyebrow ticked up. “The brotherhood respects me because of what I’ve done for them,” he explained. “Which means when I tell them you belong to me, then you belong to me.”

“No, I mean… Does that mean you broke the Code?” 

“ _No_.” His growl sliced into her with a steel blade. “It means someone else went against the Code, went behind my back, and tried to take what’s mine.”

“Me,” Felicity whispered.

“You.”

“So… so what, then?”

“It means that when I find out who did that, it is my right to kill them. It is my privilege. And it will be expected of me.” 

She should have expected it. The problem, though, was the way he said it. It wasn’t an option. He had the right to kill, sure, but in the Bratva…

He _had_ to. 

“Felicity…”

His voice broke on her name.

“You once asked me,” he whispered, “if I had any happy stories from when I was on the island. Do you remember that? I said nothing good happened.”

“I remember.”

“This? The way I got involved with the Bratva? It’s the worst part of me. The darkest part of those five years I was gone. Because I chose it. It fed the darkest parts of me, and I let it. I reveled in it. Nobody made me do it. Nobody pushed me. I was the one who earned my Vory status by…”

“By what?”

“Favors.” Icy disquiet filled the space around that single word. “The Bratva is give and take - I do this for you, you do this for me. Doesn’t matter what it is. The last time I approached Alexi for something, he asked me to kill someone. I did things like that and more, because I wanted money. I wanted the status I used to have. I wanted to be who I was before everything went wrong, and I thought this was the way. I wanted more… and I got it. And so much more.”

He stared at her.

“I did a lot of favors, Felicity.”

The statement hung in the air between them, heavy and riddled with meaning.

“So yes,” Oliver muttered. “I am in the Russian mafia. I am Bratva.”

Felicity pursed her lips against the surety in his voice. But it was more than that. Because underneath that simple statement, she heard the shade of disgust. Of shame. Fear. 

He believed what he said.

Tears filled her eyes, along with a fresh rush of anger, and she grabbed his face. The stupid wraps around her hands got in the way, so Felicity dug her fingers into his jaw, and then her nails. It was hard enough to hurt, but he didn’t react. He took it. 

Because he thought he deserved it. 

Her heart broke. 

She wanted to shake him, slap him, punch him, hug and kiss him all at the same time.

“You’re also Oliver Queen,” Felicity told him. He flinched as if she’d hit him. The icy wall he’d hidden behind cracked down the middle and he grabbed her arms to push her away. She didn’t let him. “And the Arrow.”

“Felicity-”

“And the man who makes me feel safe.” His breath caught. He held her too tight, but she didn’t care. She stared at him, urging him to hear her. “I know you, Oliver. I trust you. As long as I’m by your side, nothing will happen to me. I _know_ that. If you can’t believe in yourself enough to believe that, then believe me.”

The struggle in his eyes was painfully obvious. 

Felicity cupped his cheeks, smoothing her thumbs under his eyes. “Believe me.”

She wasn’t sure how long they stood there before she saw it: he wanted to. But he couldn’t.

“Oh Oliver,” she breathed.

Her broken man. He didn’t know how to believe in himself, to trust not only that he was doing the right thing, but that he was capable of it, to see the light in himself. The demons of his past were still so strong and short of shaking him until they fell out, she didn’t know what to do.

But for right now, she could catch him. 

And she did when he released a shuddery gasp and fell against her, their foreheads colliding.

“I don’t want to see it anymore. Everything I did. Everything I am.” Anguish twisted his voice. “I don’t want you to see it. That you’re in this… I hate it. I hate whoever’s after you, I hate that I didn’t know, that I couldn’t protect you. But the worst part is… I was one of them. I _am_ one of them. That monster’s still in me.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she replied. Oliver stiffened, and he pulled away on a sharp inhale, but she grabbed onto him, not letting him get far. “But every day you fight to be better. Don’t let what happened in the past take away from the good you do now. The lives you save, the people you help, the hope you inspire. You sacrifice so much, and you give all of yourself for nothing in return. If you had to be that person-”

He tried to turn away with an agonized, “Felicity-”

“To get to the man you are now?” she continued. “The man who does everything in his power to protect everyone in this city, to protect me, no matter the cost? I should feel so alone right now, because what they are doing is horrifying, but I don’t. Because I have you.”

Oliver stared at her, desperation cracking the crumbling wall he fought to keep in place. 

“When there were people still watching my apartment?” Felicity continued. Her voice betrayed her, shaking as the fear from the night before snuck back in. He heard it and he immediately shifted from defensive to protective in the space of a second, wrapping his arms around her. “You protected me.”

“Always,” he promised, dropping his forehead against hers again. “I will always protect you.”

“I know,” she said. “I know that. But it makes me think about… What if I had been home last night? Would they have grabbed me? Would… would they have come in? Would they have come into my apartment when I was in the shower, or in bed, or…?”

“Felicity,” Oliver breathed, smoothing his hands up her back to cup her face. “That will never happen.”

“But it’ll happen to someone.”

He stiffened.

“Someone,” Felicity she went on, “who won’t have the Arrow there to save them.” He jerked away from her, his face darkening. She gritted her teeth. “Oliver, I can’t sit by and do nothing when that’s happening to someone else.”

“You’re not,” Oliver bit out. “You found the list-”

“That’s not good enough,” Felicity told him. “Getting past the fact that we got it illegally, nothing in it ties to anyone in the Bratva. It doesn’t even tie to the clubs. It’s lists. Random lists. We’re no closer to finding out anything about what’s happening, and people are disappearing _now_ -”

“You think I don’t know that?” 

“I know you do. Because this is what we do. This is what we spend every night fighting. And that’s why we both know that the easiest way to get to the source of it - to the people behind this, to the people who can stop it - is by going to the gala.”

He recoiled. “ _No_.”

“Oliver-”

“You are not going anywhere near that gala.”

“Hear me out- Oliver, stop! Listen. He said you have to bring me. He made it sound like you had to, or you get nothing. So if my being there makes it easier-”

“It won’t-”

“Then I want to go. I can’t sit back and do nothing! I can’t hope things will work out because I’m too scared to do anything-”

“Felicity-”

“And I can do something here, now. And I know you won’t let anything happen to me-”

“I can’t let you go-”

“Yes, you can! I trust you to keep me safe-”

“That’s not it!” he growled before spinning away.

“Then what is it?” Felicity asked, following, her voice rising. “What’s the problem?”

“There is no problem,” Oliver snapped, turning back with a hard glare, “because it’s not fucking happening. You are not going to the gala. End of story.”

“Oliver-”

But he was already walking away. 

“Oliver!”

Felicity tried to follow him, but he was fast, and by the time her feet were moving, she heard the slam of the bathroom door. 

“God!” 

Growling, she shoved her hands into her hair and looked around helplessly.

Then she stomped back to the dummy.

Hands curling into fists, she punched it.

It wasn’t nearly as satisfying, and with a growl, she fell into the stance Oliver had shown her.

The next punch was much better, a solid hit, but all the triumph disappeared in the face of the fact that it was because of him, as was her renewed frustration.

She pulled back to hit it again. “Frakking _stupid_ -”

“Nice hit.”

Felicity jumped and turned to see Diggle jogging down the rattly metal stairs. 

“Thanks,” she replied sarcastically. “Who knew all it took was the Russian mafia coming after you.”

Diggle raised an eyebrow. “Is that it?” 

Heat swamped her face, and her shoulders fell. “I take it you heard all that?”

“I did.” He draped his coat over a chair.

“Is this the part where you tell me you agree with Oliver and that I need to stay out of it?” 

“No,” Diggle replied as he came toward her. “This is the part where I say I think we should do a refresher course on your training.”

Felicity blinked. “What? Really?”

“You know, when I first met Oliver, I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone as thick-headed as he can be.”

“‘Till you met me, huh?”

“Going to the gala is stupid,” he said bluntly. “And reckless. We know nothing about what you’re walking into, if you’ll even get what we need, or what the Bratva has planned for either of you. I don’t need my gut telling me this is a bad idea. Common sense does that just fine.”

The words stung. “But if it means stopping this from happening to someone else-”

“I get it,” Diggle interrupted. “I do. I wanna stop this as much as you do, as Oliver does. But…”

He sighed and opened his mouth to continue, but then he changed his mind.

A wry smile curved her lips. “You look like you wanna say something about me being thick-headed.”

“Stubborn,” he corrected before smiling. “And brave. And stupid. Very stupid. But brave.”

Felicity huffed out a laugh as a fresh swell of tears burned the back of her throat. Talk about stupid, she thought as she took a slow breath and swallowed them back. But it felt good having someone understand. He didn’t like it, but he got it, and he wasn’t yelling at her. 

The support meant more than she could put into words.

Diggle seemed to understand that, too, because he grasped her shoulder with a warm, reassuring squeeze.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “And I hope to hell it’s not the damn gala, but if it is… Well, I hope it isn’t, but after last night, I’d feel a whole lot better making sure you were as prepared as we can get you. Not just for the gala, but for anything.”

“Thank you.”

Diggle chuckled. “You won’t be thanking me later. Are we going into the office today?”

All she had wanted yesterday was to maintain her usual routine, to maintain some control, to show anyone who might be following her she wasn’t scared. Except there wasn’t any ‘might’ about being followed anymore, was there? And while it would probably be good to maintain some order in her life, the thought of putting on a cheerful face at QC made her want to scream.

And it wasn’t like Oliver ever actually wanted to be there.

“No,” Felicity replied, although it came out more like a question. She shook her head and said more firmly, “No. Especially because Isabel is in New York today and tomorrow.”

“Alright then.” Diggle nodded. “Let’s change and meet back here in five.”

Feeling lighter than she had in days, she spun to go find something to work out in. She made it three steps into the shadows when Diggle flipped the lights on, flooding the space with illumination.

And showing where Oliver lurked in the dark.

Felicity stopped short of running into him. 

But he wasn’t looking at her. He stared over her head at Diggle, face tense, eyes narrowed.

Diggle beat her to addressing his obvious displeasure with a dry, “Care to join us?”

The muscle in Oliver’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t respond. 

Instead, he swept past Felicity, grabbed the sweatshirt he had discarded earlier, and disappeared up the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what did you think?
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
> **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


	13. Thursday 11 a.m.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the gala still looming, Felicity pushes for more answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said that I wanted to break Oliver and Felicity down and rebuild them to what I want?

  
(57 hours before the gala)

_… you just stood there screaming, fearing no one was listening to you…_

“Good!” 

Diggle’s voice carried through the foundry as they circled each other. Well, he circled, and she tried to keep from tripping over her feet.

“Elbows in. There you go. Be sure to keep your base, no matter how much we move. Keep it focused.”

Felicity adjusted her stance slightly, widening her feet. She blinked against her contacts, keeping her eyes on him. He was the size of a truck, but he was fast. Her hands shook with exertion. Sweat coated her skin, hot and slick, tendrils sticking to her face and neck. The usually cold foundry was on fire, and her cropped sports tank with its built-in sports bra did nothing to make it better.

His fist shot toward her face.

She dodged it, just like they practiced. 

They fell into the rhythm they had carved out in their sparring session - slow, but steady. He threw a couple different variations at her, keeping her on her toes, and when she deflected them, it was to the sound of encouragement.

It fueled her. She should be dead on her feet by now, but each move was energizing.

Or maybe it was Oliver’s dark presence skulking around the foundry. 

His mood had gotten worse since he’d reappeared an hour ago. Every time their eyes met, she saw anger banked in his gaze. It only pushed her harder. Especially with their conversation from earlier whirling around in her head. God, if only he would-

Felicity’s feet left the ground and gravity slammed her to the mat. 

“Ow,” she groaned. She slowly rolled onto her back, grimacing when the mat stuck to her sweaty skin. The good news was she’d been falling almost as much as Diggle had been tossing punches at her. The bad news was it still hurt. A lot. 

Digg’s hand appeared before her. “Told you to keep it focused.”

She huffed and took his hand. He hauled her off the ground and handed her a water bottle, and then her towel. She took them with a grateful smile, scrubbing her face and taking a drink. 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah. You?”

His eyes darted over her. Not spotting any injuries, Diggle nodded and raised an eyebrow at her. “Go again?”

One more drink of water and they were back at it, circling each other, bare feet squeaking on the mats. They went through the same motions, Diggle offering pointers every other minute, illustrating modifications or adjustments for her to make before dropping back into his stance, urging her to do the same.

He picked up the pace. Her muscles burned, but she kept up.

Then the hair on the back of her neck rose.

It took her a second too long to realize how quiet the foundry was. Too quiet. The continuous clang of metal on metal of the salmon ladder no longer punctuated each passing second… 

Strong arms snatched her from behind. 

Felicity yelped. She hit a sweaty chest, a steel arm banding over her waist and lifting her off her feet as a hard hand slapped over her mouth.

One look at Diggle told her he’d been expecting it.

How had they coordinated this? _When_? She’d been out here the entire time!

With a breathless growl, Felicity dropped her weight like Diggle had shown her. It worked, and a quiet grunt sounded in her ear as her attacker stumbled forward. But that was it. He was too strong, too well-honed, and all she could do was gasp for air when he released her mouth.

But not to let her go. 

To loosely wrap his arm around the front of her shoulders because he knew he had her. 

Anger slammed into her. 

Felicity dug her nails into his arm and with a vicious snarl, tried the move again. This time she lifted her legs into her chest and tried to roll him forward. But the stupid jerk was ready for it. He widened his stance and followed her motion as if it was his own, effectively stealing her power and trapping her in his arms.

They both froze.

It was the worst possible thing to do because suddenly the air in the foundry shifted.

His shirt had disappeared at some point, leaving every ridged, sweat-slicked muscle pressing into her. His cheek rested against the side of her head, his stubble biting into the sensitive skin of her ear, his ragged breaths hot against her temple. His fingers were under the strap of her sports bra, his other hand still snug around her ribs. The rough edges of his bandages and calluses scraped over her abdomen with her every breath. Despite herself, she shivered. It cut down her spine, sending out a thousand needle-pointed goosebumps that gathered in her breasts and between her legs. It felt like a damn betrayal how her body reacted to him, because her anger at him was right there with it. It actually made it _worse_. Blood thundered in her ears. He was so hot, too hot against her, and her yoga pants were too thin, his sweats no better, letting her feel so much more of him.

Felicity licked dry lips. She tried to think, to breathe, but it didn’t work.

“… to kick if you…”

Diggle’s voice broke into her thoughts and her eyes snapped open. She didn’t even know they’d been closed. Diggle was talking about training - _kick, drive her heel into her attacker, shove her elbow back if she had the room, stomp her foot, bite him…_

“Bite him?” Felicity blurted.

“A fair fight is the last thing you’re going to get,” Oliver whispered. 

Her stomach pitched at the gritty words.

“Exactly,” Diggle said. “The primary goal is to get away as fast as possible. If that means biting or pulling hair or gouging eyes, it doesn’t matter. Do it all. Now look here…”

When she looked down to see the methods of attack, her lips brushed Oliver’s arm.

His muscles tightened, his fingers digging in, his breath turning quick and short before he pressed his face further into her-

Oliver let her go, and a rush of cool air swept over her damp back.

“Wait, hold on, don’t go anywhere,” Diggle said. “Get back in position for a second.”

Felicity closed her eyes. 

Was this hell?

After a slight hesitation, Oliver wrapped his arms around her again. She thought she would be prepared, but she wasn’t, not in the slightest. A wild flush warmed her cheeks, and she prayed Diggle thought it was from the training and not Oliver being wrapped around her. 

“Now,” Diggle continued, “you did good, but you didn’t have the momentum to throw him over your shoulder, and most of the time you won’t. Try taking him out from the other end…”

Diggle went through another move they had practiced already, pointing at the weak spots to use so she could get into position. She heard everything he said, or she tried to.

It was a little hard thinking past anything but the unsteady breaths puffing out against her neck.

Just when she thought it was over, Diggle grabbed her leg and readjusted her. She wasn’t ready for it and lost her balance. But Oliver was there. He pulled her flush against him, and it was him that moved her body to match where Diggle positioned her, not Felicity. No, she was just there for the ride, struggling to keep her attention where it belonged.

His nose grazed the side of her neck and her lips parted in a pant.

“You two can relax now,” Diggle said, turning away.

Oliver let her go so abruptly she stumbled.

Felicity glanced behind her. He slowly backed away, his face carefully blank. The raging storm in his eyes betrayed him. Her stomach dipped so low she felt it in her core. He locked her in place with his gaze until Diggle spoke again. 

“I gotta head out,” he said, wiping his face. “I’m meeting Lyla at one.”

Oliver melted into the shadows.

Blowing out a quick breath, Felicity turned to Diggle with a bright smile. “Lyla, huh?”

Diggle didn’t take the bait. “You want me to stay?”

“No,” Felicity replied. “No, it’s okay. You go. Especially if it’s a hot date. Is it a hot date? Can lunch dates be hot? I guess any date can be hot if you want it to be. Is it too soon to be asking that?”

Diggle chuckled. “Lyla’s getting me contact information for someone we knew a couple years ago.”

“Oh.” Felicity raised teasing eyebrows. “Sounds like an excuse to see her.”

“Well, now that,” Diggle said, gathering up his jacket, “that is too soon.”

“You just risked your life to save her from a terrifying Russian gulag,” Felicity pointed out. It felt good to focus on something that had nothing to do with her. “If there was ever something to reconnect over, it’s that. You can pretend otherwise, but I saw the way you two looked at each other…” Diggle smirked, and Felicity pounced. “Aha, so there is something!”

“I’ll be on my phone if you need me,” he said instead of answering, which had Felicity poking his arm in a rush of excitement. He batted her away, but a small smile stayed fixed in place as he shrugged his jacket on. “You sure you’re good?”

“Yes.”

Diggle glanced after where Oliver had disappeared. “It might not be a horrible idea for you two to give each other some space today.”

“You’re probably not wrong about that,” she admitted.

“Ha,” he replied as he walked out. “Probably not.”

Then it was just her and the low hum of the lights and the whir of her servers.

And no Oliver.

Rolling her eyes, Felicity wiped her sweaty face. She was filmy and gross, but the thought of going through the motions for a shower was too much. Spinning in an aimless circle, she settled on filling her empty stomach with a protein bar and… 

The cameras still sat on her desk.

She hesitated, but it was nothing like this morning. She was ready to tackle this. 

“Back traces,” she said. “Gimme all the back traces.”

Shoving the protein bar in her mouth, Felicity plopped into her chair and got to work.

An hour later, though, all she had was disappointment.

The trace on the camera feed kept pinging her to half a dozen different servers around the world. Just when she thought she saw a pattern, it sent her somewhere else. They were good, damn them. Well, so was she. She didn’t care how long it took; she was going to find them. But the lists of people? That was harder. Some read like something out of a bookie’s journal, people asking for favors from the Bratva, and depending on the favor, the price was literally that person’s life. Or body. The Bratva blackmailed others because they fit specific requests, she learned, her insides twisting. But most of it was just people listed like chattel. Hundreds of them. And the rare few who got a hit in the SCPD’s missing person database were either reported as dead or the case had gone so cold that it got lost in the shuffle.

That was especially true for people in the Glades.

Another hour passed, and she was no closer to anything than she had been when she started. 

With an aggravated curse, Felicity shoved out of her chair. 

What was she even looking for? A clue. A single frakking clue. To who wanted her, to why, to whoever had taken Camille, or how she got to freaking Hungary of all places. To how this tied to Central City, to Starling City, to any of it. It felt like she was looking for a needle in a bucket of needles.

A low whistling sound had her looking over her shoulder, but there was nothing. 

Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Oliver for a few hours. 

Another whistle.

Felicity followed it to a far damp corner of the foundry. 

A flickering emergency light caught a shadowy figure in a spatter of movement. 

An escrima stick in each hand, Oliver whipped them through the air, the whistling sound following. His body was a symphony of motion - feet bare, sweats riding low on his hips, his chest straining, skin shiny with sweat, muscles rippling. Wildly slicked hair gave him a dangerous edge she’d never seen before. Eyes closed, brow furrowed, he moved with a righteous fury, just narrowly avoiding the steel beams surrounding him. Every move controlled, but vicious. Deadly. His anger obviously hadn’t abated. In fact, he looked even more worked up, but now it was something more.

A tangible wall of it surrounded him. 

_Isolating_ him.

Agitation crackled across her skin.

Felicity made a beeline right for him. 

It was so dark, she could barely see, and it was only the memory of how empty this corner was that had her walking with such confidence.

Until he halted and looked right at her.

Felicity’s heart stuttered, and she stopped. There was no way he could’ve known she was there, but he did. But instead of freaking her out, it just pissed her off. Because he was hiding from her on purpose, avoiding their conversation.

Squaring her shoulders, she kept walking. “We need to talk about the gala-”

He spun so fast she didn’t see it until he slammed the sticks into a beam.

Wood exploded everywhere.

Felicity gasped, the ferocity stunning her into silence.

Oliver threw the shattered pieces away and stalked past her without a glance.

Heart pounding, she turned to watch him go before looking back at the devastated wood.

She thought she had seen him at his wit’s ends before, but this was something else. This damage was something else. This wasn’t fresh like Tommy’s death. It was old and scarred and sealed under years of self-recrimination where it had festered, leaving him an exposed nerve, so raw and tangled and broken that all he could do was lash out. 

The past had its claws so deep in him, and it was bleeding him from the inside out.

“God,” Felicity groaned and scrubbed her face. She pushed her hands over her head to cup the back of her neck and stared at the mess. She was pushing him too hard, and she knew it. She had almost lost him after Tommy, and he had been nowhere near this.

But what else was she supposed to do?

This was bigger than him, and it was bigger than her. If the gala was how they could stop what happened to Camille from happening to someone else, if they could save even one life… 

It was worth it.

Felicity followed him. 

She found him at one of the supply chests pulling out fresh escrima sticks. He wrapped the handles with tape, each movement decided and harsh.

He didn’t look at her once.

Felicity bit her lips together before sighing. “Oliver-”

“Don’t.”

The command hit her harder than the sticks had hit the beam. She frowned. “I have to.” 

“You don’t _have_ to do anything,” he bit out. 

“God, Oliver, yes I do!” she snapped. He froze, his muscles turning to rock. “I know you don’t want me involved in this, but guess what, I already am. The Bratva saw to that. And even if they hadn’t, I can’t sit here and do nothing. That’s not who I am. So stop asking me to and instead help me understand what we’re walking into-”

Oliver dropped the sticks and spun around, coming right at her. 

Felicity choked on the rest of her words and stumbled back. He invaded her space, crowding her backwards until she ran into the back of her chair. It slammed into her desk and he pressed her into it until there was nothing left between them but her startled gasps and his harsh breaths. 

His eyes dropped to her lips.

When they darkened, his pupils blowing wide, something hot and languid uncoiled in the pit of her stomach. She felt _him_ pressed against her, and a fiery blush swept over her chest and up her neck. It only grew hotter when he let out a ragged breath that danced over her lips. His nostrils flared, and she watched him try to reign himself in. 

Face hardening, Oliver gripped the back of her neck in a firm hand and yanked her even closer.

A whimper slipped out of her, and his eyes shot back to hers.

The look in them carved her so deep she could taste it. Molten heat mixed with a ferocity that shook her to the core.

He wanted her, and he was fucking livid about it.

“This,” Oliver rasped, “is what I will have to do the entire night to prove to the brotherhood that you’re mine. Saying it isn’t enough. I need to _show_ them.”

“It doesn’t seem so bad,” she whispered without thinking.

Fury filled him, the storm rising in a vicious crash that came right for her. 

Oliver wrapped his hand around her throat.

Her heart had already been pounding to the point of making her dizzy, but now it really took off. Her stomach pitched, but she held steady, unafraid. 

“Felicity,” he breathed.

Oliver squeezed. 

She couldn’t stop her startled gasp. 

He cocked his head as that unsettling disconnect came back. It chilled her blood more than anything, especially when he leaned in closer, his breath ghosting over her skin. His cheek brushed hers and it overwhelmed her, the sensation of him everywhere.

Then he gripped her jaw and angled her head away so they weren’t touching. 

“I will do anything I want with you,” he said into her ear. The heat faded the more he spoke in that lifeless voice. “ _To_ you. Because you are mine. To show off… to touch however I want…”

His other hand grazed her waist, still bare because all she wore was her cropped sports tank. 

But where before his touch had ignited a thousand fires deep inside her, now his fingers felt like a stranger’s.

Ice shot down her spine.

She couldn’t see him. His voice didn’t sound like him. His touch was off.

“To play with,” he continued. “And I will.”

His hand closed around her throat, too hard, hard enough that a surge of panic erupted deep inside her. 

Felicity shoved at him with a gasp.

Oliver instantly released her.

She collapsed against her chair, her hand flying to her neck. He leveled her with a hard look that did nothing to hide the agony underneath it.

“That’s why we won’t be going,” he said before turning away. 

Disbelief and anger filled the void he left behind. Felicity went after him. He had to hear her chair hitting her desk again, but he didn’t stop walking away, grabbing those stupid sticks and moving back to his stupid corner again. 

Felicity grabbed the first thing she could find - a small metal bowl off the med cart - and threw it at him.

It hit the back of his shoulder with a hard thwack. 

Oliver spun around, but she was on him before he could open his mouth. 

“How dare you,” Felicity hissed. She shoved his chest as hard as she could. He stumbled back a couple steps, eyes widening before narrowing into a glare. She didn’t care. She kept after him, shoving his chest again, sending him back another foot onto the training mats. “You can’t just talk to me, can you? Instead of talking to me, you put your hand around my throat? To scare me into not going? Is that really what you think of me, you think you’re going to chase me off with some stupid intimidation act?” She shoved him again. “I can’t _believe_ you-”

He threw the sticks away and grabbed her with a strident, “Felicity-”

“No!” She pushed his hands away. “You don’t get to _Felicity_ your way out of this. All you do is push people away - it’s all you do! But not this time! You will not do that to me, do you hear me?”

Oliver held his hands up - in placation - but she saw right through it.

He was just as angry as before, not swayed in the least. 

She saw red. 

“Damn it, Oliver,” Felicity snarled, and she pushed on his chest again. 

Or she tried to. 

With a sharp, “Goddamn it,” he grabbed her hands midair and yanked her into him.

But she was ready for it. Her body was ready for it, the training kicking in. 

Felicity twisted out of his grasp and grabbed his arm, pulling him into her space, just like Diggle had shown her. Oliver’s eyes bugged in surprise, but she didn’t get the chance to appreciate it because she was already following through. 

She rammed her elbow into his jaw.

It happened so fast, in quick bursts - the impact of bone on bone, his stubble scraping her skin, his head rocketing back.

Shocked, she fell still.

It was a mistake.

Because he was the freaking Arrow and she was a novice.

Before she could comprehend anything, he was grabbing her again. But this time he didn’t hold back, as he had before. In the blink of an eye, he had her spun around, her back hitting his chest with so much force it shoved the little air she had in her lungs out in a hot gush. He wrapped her up, pinning her to him with ease.

She didn’t realize she’d frozen until he flattened his hand over her abdomen with a hard, “Breathe, Felicity.”

She sucked in a quick breath at his command, and she hated it.

Gritting her teeth, Felicity grabbed his arm and threw her leg outside of his braced one. He wasn’t expecting it, and she was counting on that. It was the only thing that let her slip out of his grasp enough to reach down and grab his leg between hers and yank it out from under him as hard as she could. 

He tumbled backwards.

“Ha!” Felicity shouted, throwing an indignant fist in the air.

Mistake number two - she should have moved.

Oliver was up in a flash, grabbing her just as his leg swept her feet out from under her.

Felicity got a yelp out and then she was falling. 

Steel arms snatched her mid-air. She crashed into his hard chest as they landed on the floor, his back taking the brunt of the impact. He flipped her underneath him in the same breath and pinned her to the mat. 

Oliver nailed her wrists to the ground by her head and growled, “ _Run_.”

Her head spun. “W-what-”

“You run when you get hits in like that,” he told her. Heat came off him in waves, wrapping her up, fueling her own as his earthy scent warred with the plastic smell of the mats. “You won’t have time for shock or being glad you landed it in the first place. They aren’t used to people fighting back. You have the element of surprise, so use it. Hit them and then you _run_.”

It was too much - sensory overload - and words were falling out before she could stop them.

“It’s hard to run in heels, though,” she blurted. “Especially really high ones. There’s a whole balance issue, and if I take them off, then there’s my dress dragging on the floor-”

“Felicity.” Oliver shackled her wrists over her head with one hand and grabbed her chin with the other. “This isn’t a fucking joke. This is life and death. _Your_ life and death-”

She gaped at him. “I know it’s not a joke-”

“The Bratva are snakes. They are dangerous and they will stop at nothing to get what they want, and right now what they want is _you_. I will not have you risking your life like it means nothing!”

“It does mean something, Oliver! Just like yours does, like John’s!” Felicity wrenched her chin out of his grasp. “Do you even hear yourself? How do you think I feel having to watch you go out every single night, risking your life, wondering if the gunshots I hear on the comms are the last thing I’ll ever hear from you? Or when I know you’re getting hurt and I can’t do anything about it? What happens when you’re stuck somewhere dying and I can’t get to you? I think about that every single day. You ask that of me _every single day_.”

“It’s different-”

“The hell it is!” Felicity bucked against his hold. “You think I can’t handle it, right? You think I can’t handle whatever it is you’ll have to do-”

“I don’t _want_ you to handle it,” Oliver snapped.

“Well, that’s too bad!”

The last word came out on a growl as Felicity curled a leg around one of his and flipped them.

Oliver grunted in surprise as he landed on his back with a hard thud. Felicity scrambled to keep her position on top of him, but he was once again too fast, rolling them again so she was underneath him. But she was ready for it, just like Diggle taught her, and she rolled them one more time, grabbing his shoulders and pinning him to the mat. 

“What do they want to see?” she panted. “What do we have to do?”

Stormy, obstinate blue glared up at her and he grabbed her waist to haul her off him.

“No, _show me_ ,” she demanded, curling her feet under him, anchoring herself to him. “What do we have to do? Do we have to touch, like this-”

Felicity put her hands on his chest.

Oliver jerked as if she’d electrocuted him. Her words fell away as he went still, staring up at her with unfathomable eyes. His fingers dug into her waist.

They both knew if he wanted to, he could toss her across the room right now.

She waited for him to do it.

But he didn’t.

Holding his gaze, she slowly sat up and spread her fingers over his pecs. 

His chest stuttered under her touch, and she had to look. Her hands were so small compared to him, the width of his body totally eclipsing hers. His skin was hot and damp with perspiration, and there were so many scars, more than she could see. But she felt them. Thick and ropey, scraping against her fingers, others raised, but smoother, some nothing more than a hint of what had happened. Small, large. Slashes, gouges, cuts, bullet holes. Felicity touched every single one, knowing there were just as many if not more inside him.

Her touch grew heavier, wanting to reach the ones she couldn’t see.

The wounds still bleeding after all these years.

“Oliver,” she breathed.

She scooted down his stomach to reach more, and his hands slipped from her waist to her hips, to her thighs. When her butt touched the hem of his sweats, his abdomen contracted wildly. She felt the firm wall of muscle against every intimate corner of her. Her core clenched, and she instinctively settled more firmly against him. He shuddered and his fingers bit into her thighs as goosebumps erupted under her hands. 

Mesmerized, she followed their path back up his muscular chest, to the strong ridges of his shoulders, to his powerful neck. 

When she looked at his face, his eyes were closed, his nostrils flared. His jaw was so tight it looked like it would cut her fingers. Felicity smoothed her hands over it, but he didn’t soften. It hardened even more, somehow, making his stubble heavier, harsher.

The urge to feel it against her overwhelmed her.

Felicity pressed her cheek to his. 

His breath caught. 

She nuzzled him as she pushed her hands into his hair. Her heart soared when he pressed back against her with a soft sigh, his hands sliding up over her back. His long fingers got caught in the straps of her sports bra, rough and damp. She shivered, and he gripped her tighter, sending bands of heat arching through her. 

The more he touched her, the more heat coiled deep inside her. Her breasts ached, a needy throb growing between her legs, wetness dampening her panties. With a whimper, she arched her back and rubbed against him. Sensation swamped her as Oliver hissed. His hands slipped down her back and under the tight band of her pants. His callused fingers dug into her flesh as he raised his legs, bracketing her in… 

And pressing the large bulge in his sweats right where she needed it.

They both gasped.

“Felicity…”

She nodded, dragging her cheek over his as she sought his lips, his stubble leaving tiny lines of fire. The instant her mouth slanted over his, he opened, his tongue seeking hers in a dominating sweep. 

Felicity whimpered as he took over her mouth, and as she ground down on him, eliciting the sweetest groan from him. His fingers tightened, one hand slipping further inside her pants, the other splaying over her upper back, pinning her to him as his hips arched up against her.

She couldn’t stop the tiny cry that fell out of her.

One second she was on top, and then next he was twisting her off and vaulting away.

Stunned, Felicity just laid there, staring at the ceiling, trying to catch her breath.

Her entire body throbbed, her lips tender from the brief but fierce kiss, her skin tingling where he’d touched her. She slowly sat up, brushing strands of hair off her face. Every nerve ending in her was lit up and she wrapped her arm around her middle, as if the thundering want would send her flying into a thousand different directions.

No, that wasn’t right.

Every piece would fly to him.

Felicity pushed to her feet and turned to where he stood a few feet away, his back rigid, head bowed, his hands buried in his hair. 

She took a step towards him with a shaky, “Oliver-”

He spun to face her and the sight he made took her breath away.

Desperate eyes, cheeks flushed, lips swollen, sweats tented. Seams unraveled all around him, and it was because of her. It was a heady realization knowing that this man, the strongest person she knew, the bravest, most cunning and sharply intelligent man who faced death every day and won, was coming apart because of her.

She whispered his name again, and something in him snapped.

Oliver closed the distance between them in a few quick strides and kissed her. 

He swept inside her when she opened, and he _took_. He kissed her like a starved man, as if he hadn’t had sustenance in days, weeks. He took, and he took, and she gave, relenting, her hands scrambling over him for purchase.

“Felicity,” he groaned, breaking away, his voice ragged like he was being flayed alive. “I can’t do this. I can’t make you do this. It’s crossing a line-”

“I’m pretty sure we already crossed that line, Oliver.”

A violent shudder wracked his frame. With a groaned, “Goddamn it,” Oliver grabbed her face in hard hands and shoved his forehead against hers.

“But we can use it,” Felicity added.

Oliver jerked back. “What?” 

“They have to see it, right? This, whatever this is, whatever is happening, it’s real. I mean… it-it feels real, whatever this is. We can use it-”

“I will not use you,” he snarled.

“You won’t be using me,” Felicity argued. “Not like that. You said yourself they need to see-”

“But I will be,” Oliver said coldly.

She started as he transformed right before her eyes again, becoming unfeeling and detached. 

Becoming the Bratva Captain.

She shook her head. “Oliver…”

“You’re right,” he whispered. “There is something between us. So I should use that to prove that I know every inch of you, right? That I own every inch of you. Because that’s what the Bratva do, Felicity. We take. We own. And then we discard.” Anger flashed in his eyes and Oliver yanked her closer. “Is that how I should use you? Because that’s what it’ll be. You will be nothing more than a pretty thing on my arm. There isn’t room for feelings, or attachments. There’s just the brotherhood. Just Bratva.”

“But not you. They can think whatever they want, but you won’t do that.”

“Won’t I?” He laughed, an ugly, bitter sound. “You think I’m a good man, but I’m not.”

“Oliver-”

“I did all those things,” he said. “I did them and more. In Russia. Hungary. Ukraine, Poland, Czechia. It didn’t matter. I did them because I am a _vory_ in the Solntsevskaya Bratva. I am a _Kapitan_ , and that’s what we do. That’s what I did. It’s who I was, and if I have to…” He gritted his teeth as a divide appeared in his eyes. It was so huge and devastating that she wanted to cry. “I have done everything to get away from that person, Felicity, and if I walk in there with you on my arm, I will become him again. I will have to treat you like you are so much less than me, when you are anything but. I can’t do that to you. Please don’t ask me to.”

“I trust you.”

Oliver squeezed his eyes shut. “Felicity-”

“I do. I trust you to know the difference. Because you do. I feel it in the way you hold me, the way you look at me, how you touch me, how you… How you kiss me.” He shuddered and let her go, stepping back. Felicity grabbed his arm and didn’t let go. “Oliver, we aren’t that. We will never be that. Because that’s not who we are. We can do this. This can work, you just have to trust us.”

Felicity stared at him.

“Trust us to do this,” she said. “Trust me. Please.”

She waited. With bated breath, with blood thundering through her veins, she waited. His skin burned as fear and anger and horror and worry and terror whipped through his eyes, softening them to cerulean before they grew dark and heavy with turmoil. 

“Please,” she implored.

Anguish tightened his brow.

He gasped out a startled breath, his eyes gentling.

“I can’t,” he gasped.

Hurt carved through her.

“You can’t…” she breathed, her voice cracking. 

He didn’t trust her. Not like she trusted him. He gave her his trust, but only on his terms, only in a way he could control. And when he couldn’t? He snatched it right back, until something else came up, until he needed her again. That’s how it’d been from the start, and apparently that was how it always would be.

The worst part? She knew he did this. And yet she still thought - hoped, wished - that it would change.

A startled laugh fell out of her. “You don’t trust me.”

“No, I do,” he said, moving back to her. “Felicity, I do trust you.”

She fell back a step, putting her hand up to stop him. And he did. 

“You don’t trust anyone,” Felicity told him. The look that crossed his face shredded her heart, and that only made it worse, because he didn’t realize it. “I keep telling myself it’ll change, it’ll be different. Eventually. Somehow. But you don’t _trust_. Not me. Not anyone, and I don’t… I don’t know why. I don’t even think you do. Because you do one thing, and then you say another, and that just… That’s not fair, Oliver. It’s not _fair_ , because you’re the man that I…”

She stopped. It was too much, too soon, too fast, too… _wrong_ , the timing, the magnitude of all of it. 

But somehow he knew the word that almost slipped out because he froze. He stopped breathing, his eyes wide.

“I can’t…” Felicity wiped her nose, then hid her face in her hand as an onslaught of tears burned her eyes. She tried to think, to reason, to remind herself of what was happening, but her chest felt ready to explode and it was just _too much_. “I-I can’t do this. I can’t… do this.”

She turned before he could say anything and walked away.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Reviews literally feed the soul and muse.
> 
>  **([And please check out an additional note from me](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/637049502968233984/if-you-wish-to-support-me-and-my-writing-please)!)**


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